


Where the Ocean Meets the Sky

by darker_descent



Series: Mutualistic Parasitism [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Family, Fix-It, Motherhood, Other, Slow Burn, no beta we die like men, or as slow a burn it can be when you cohabit a body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darker_descent/pseuds/darker_descent
Summary: When Dr. Dora Skirth tried to put an end to Carlton Drake's unethical methods of research, she hadn't anticipated herself being his last test subject.Luckily for her, she was also one of the first to live.





	1. Open It

**Author's Note:**

> in the works since october of 2018, my skirth fix-it is finally here! i hope everyone enjoys it, i worked really hard on it
> 
> also, this fic is majorly movieverse-based with selective comic lore sprinkled in depending on how much i like it. one of the big ways i’m diverging from movie canon is that i’m saying that symbiotes don’t have names. so “venom” is not the symbiote, but is instead eddie+symbiote (like in comics).

Carlton Drake had been her boss — no, more than her boss; he was  _ trusted _ , he was a  _ friend _ — for years. For years he had been ordering less-than-ethical trials, but all for the greater good: the Life Foundation’s research was bringing them to the point of curing most of humanity’s ailments. And so Dora was able to convince herself that it was worth it. It was, wasn’t it? A few failed trials in order to save millions of people.

But then he said, sooner than he had before, “Start the human trials.” The Life Foundation had never shied away from… _ early _ testing, to say the least, but this was…different. It was too soon. They hardly had any animal test subjects that had survived, and now they were bringing in humans, and  _ all of them _ were dying. Every last one, their faces twisted in terror and their bodies oddly contorting as they were rejected as hosts.

This wasn’t curing anything. This was…she didn’t know what it was, but she knew what it wasn’t. It wasn’t  _ right _ . She couldn’t convince herself it was.

So she got help.

For the first time, she went against Drake. During the entire operation her heart was pounding, her stomach twisted in guilt, because oh God was she really doing this to him? To her company? But it was the right thing for her to do, wasn’t it? For everyone?

She didn’t have time to ponder further, because it was then that the alarm screeched, and her guilt twisted into fear.

Lucky for her, Eddie wasn’t caught; Dora had had the foresight to turn off the security cameras before she brought him in. As for her, she was figured out quickly.

She now stood in her office, and Drake’s eyes were full of hurt.

“I need you to tell me who was here with you,” he said, brows raised, voice quivering just slightly. He put a hand on her shoulder, but it seemed more to steady himself than her. “I need that from you. Because whoever was here? They’re in danger.”

She looked away.

“They’re going to die, Dora,” he said, and she found herself looking back into his eyes, full of pain, “unless we help him.” He stared at her, searching her eyes for something. “Will you trust me?” he asked.

She swallowed. Would she?  _ Could _ she? He was right, of course. If Eddie had bonded with the symbiote, he was going to die. Without Dora’s help, without the help of the Life Foundation, there was no chance of him surviving. And even through his less morally pure studies, all Drake had ever wanted was to help people, even if that meant doing what others wouldn’t. That’s how he had been as long as she had known him.

She took a breath.

“Eddie Brock,” she said, and relief flooded her as Drake’s eyes returned to calm.

“Eddie Brock?” he repeated. Dora nodded, and a small smile on the corners of his lips. He gave her shoulder one last pat before turning and walking away, his last two words melting Dora’s relief into dread.

“Open it.”

And that container in the corner, the one Dora hadn’t even noticed, opened and revealed the blue symbiote. Symbiote A02, which had just recently killed its last host, consuming his organs and shedding his carcass. It slithered and writhed in its approach, and Dora felt her fall open in shock and horror. She heard a scream, but she couldn’t tell where it came from.

Encasing her hand, it was cold and vaguely wet, like the putty her son would play with. But it was also nothing like that, because as it further entangled with her she could feel it throbbing, like a sickening heartbeat.

Then it was gone, disappeared, and she didn’t feel its slimy texture anymore. But she still felt  _ it. _ The throbbing. And now she heard it, too, in her ears, drowning out all other sounds.

Her hands felt wet. She looked down. She was sweating. Her coat was practically soaked. Distantly she heard a voice, but she didn’t process it. Her heart was beating in time with the throbbing now, fast and loud, and her breathing was heavy.

And suddenly Dora was acutely aware of where she was. Small space, sparsely and strangely lit, the dull thrum of the lights shaking her to her core. She put a hand to the glass. She was shaking. Was she dying? No, this wasn’t what those people felt like when they were dying. This was different. This was…

“She’s stabilizing,” she heard a voice say. Then, “Dora, can you hear me?”

Her hand clenched.

“Dora?”

She reeled back and smashed her fist into the glass.

It cracked and an alarm blared, sending pain through every nerve in Dora’s body. There were shouts, and all she knew was that that she had to  **run** .

She bolted, moving faster than she ever remembered be able to. She had to get away, away from the cage, away the sound, away from this.

She burst through the lab doors with unexpected strength and kept on running and running, though to where she didn’t know. Elevator? No, too long, too loud. So what were her options?

She eyed the window, considering for just a moment using it as an escape route, but quickly deciding it was too dangerous. She wouldn’t survive the fall, she would—

Her body surged forward once again, and she was headed straight for the window, and oh God, she was going to die.

She crashed through glass for the second time that night, and immediately she plummeted toward the water. Maybe that would provide a softer impact? No, of course not, this wasn’t a video game or a fantasy world. This was real life, and a fall into water from this height would  _ kill  _ her!

Dora closed her eyes and screamed and waited for what she could only imagine being the feeling of a belly flop ramped up by a thousand.

It didn’t come. Only the sensation of her hand scraping against rock, her fall slowing, and then her body being daintily submerged. As soon as the cold hit her skin, part of her wished she was dead instead.

“Shit!” she sputtered, head emerging. There were gunshots, and some strange force shoved her head back under. 

Her body kept moving without her telling it to, swimming desperately toward…toward something. Anything.

Eventually she found herself sitting on top of that something, but she couldn’t process what or where or how. All she knew was that she was cold, she was sweating, she was shaking, her head was pounding, she was  **hungry** .

“Shit,” she said, putting her head in her hands. “Shit.”

She stayed like that for a moment before becoming too overwhelmed by every unpleasant sensation in her body to sit still. Taking a deep breath, Dora tried to take in her surroundings.

She was still surrounded by water in every direction. Except up, but that was more confusing. She was seated underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, which was illuminated by lights against the dark night sky.

“Shit,” she said again. She had to try to get all the curse words out before she got home.

Home. God, she had to get home, didn’t she? Her kids were there. Were they safe?

_ “How are your kids?” _ Drake had asked.

A simple question, one which coworkers would ask often. Just smalltalk that would usually end in Dora pulling up a few of her hundreds of cute pictures of them, which her colleagues would politely “awww” at.

It was different then, when he asked it. There was something behind it. Dora doubted that suspicion for awhile, even let it go just a few minutes ago (or maybe even hours, she wasn’t sure), but now she was sure it was a threat.

“Abbey and Theo,” she said to herself. “I have to get home.”

She looked at the water around her, then looked up. It seemed the only way to get somewhere was by swimming again, but that was…less than appealing.

**Home?** she heard from somewhere in her head. It was a voice almost like hers, but deeper and more tinny.

“Home,” Dora repeated.

The voice didn’t reply, but Dora felt its presence there now. It was lodged somewhere in her brain when it spoke, but now it expanded down her entire body. That was when she started moving. She crouched, jumped, and clung onto the side of the bridge.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed as her body continued its climb.

**Is that the only word you know?** the voice said.

Dora didn’t bother replying, too caught up in the absurdity of what was happening. She could feel the cold air on her feet, and that was when she realized she was totally barefoot. Her heels must’ve been lost as soon as she jumped, now that she thought about it.

**You’re better without them,** the voice said.  **They slowed you down.**

“They were expensive,” Dora said, jumping impossibly high to grab another handhold.

The voice didn’t have anything to say to that, opting for silence again as Dora climbed. Was it Dora, though? It didn’t feel like it was her, it felt like she was being puppeted, and—

“Oh no,” she said. “You’re—”

**The symbiote,** the voice said.  **And you are Dora Skirth.**

“You know my name?”

**Obviously,** it said.

Dora swallowed nervously. “Are you going to kill me?”

**No,** it said.  **At least, not now. You’re a good match. This opportunity shouldn’t be wasted.**

Finally they were at the top of the bridge, and Dora felt her body coming back to her own control. Her stomach growled.

**Hungry,** the voice said.

Images of meat found their way into Dora’s mind. She shook her head. “No, no, I have to get home.” Besides, she was a vegetarian. This  _ thing _ wasn’t going to get meat, no matter how much it wanted it.

**Food first,** it protested.

“No,” Dora said as firmly as she could, but her voice trembled. “I already told you, I have to get home.”

**To your offspring,** it said.  **Shouldn’t they be able to fend for themselves?**

“Not against adult men,” Dora said. And for effect she added, “With guns.”

**Hm,** it said.  **At ‘home,’ there’s food?**

A million warnings shot off in Dora’s head. This was an alien parasite that was likely stronger than anything on Earth. This wasn’t its first successful bond. It had fed off of its other hosts, and though it had reasoned that Dora was too useful to consume, there was still a large possibility that she was in danger. If anything, she should try to contain this thing, maybe even kill it if she had to. That would be better for the greater good, wouldn’t it?

She thought of Abbey and Theo.

“Yes,” she said. “There’s food.”

**Then you’ll take me there,** it said simply, and Dora was overcome by that presence again, forcing her to lumber down the street.

“Hey, hey, wait,” she said, and she halted. “I can walk myself.”

**But this is more entertaining,** it said.

“What about any of this is entertaining?” she said. “I just got chased out of my workplace after achieving forced symbiosis with…with you!”

**That was very entertaining,** it said.  **The adrenaline that fear produces is wonderful to experience.**

Choosing to ignore that comment, Dora hurried toward her house, wincing each time a rock or piece of gum or mysterious liquid came in contact with her foot. Her thoughts moved equally as fast as her body, if not faster.

There were less guards at the Life Foundation than expected. That was probably because they were searching for Eddie, who had taken the black symbiote, A01. The question was, had he successfully achieved symbiosis, or was he dying? Dora herself had bonded with the symbiote, but for all she knew it was silently killing her. The last person bonded with this one had died; the creature had consumed him, and it was possible it was doing that to Dora, too. It was too early to tell, and there wasn’t enough data available to determine how to remove the symbiote. High frequency sounds could harm them, but would that expel it from her body, or would their link cause both of them to die?

Dora checked her phone. No texts from the kids, which she couldn’t determine as a good or bad sign. (They never texted her, so it was normal. If there was something going on, they’d text her. But if they were in danger and their phones were taken, they wouldn’t be able to text her. So which was it?)

She opened the news app, and blinked as she was greeted by a headline describing a terrorist attack. She opened the article: A car chase, following a man on a motorbike who, according to eyewitnesses, was seen with some sort of slime coming from his body.

Next article, also headlined with the word “terrorists.” Drones attempting to stop the man, causing fire and destruction around him.

Next article. The bodies of several armed men found either incapacitated or dead in and around the apartment of Edward Brock.

**Brock,** the symbiote said.  **You know him?**

“Yes,” Dora said, not caring to elaborate.

The symbiote paused before speaking again.  **I recognize him. He was in the lab. It must be with him.**

“It?”

**Yes. The other symbiote.**

“So. The symbiote,” Dora said. “It and Eddie, are they…?”

**It seems they’ve bonded, much like you and I have,** it said.  **I’m surprised that an outburst like this did’nt happen sooner. It must not have been as well-fed as I.** The symbiote shifted (for lack of a better description), its presence moving to somewhere else in her head.  **Speaking of, I know a shortcut to get home. You should take it.**

Images of alleyways flashed in Dora’s mind.

“What— Was that you?” she said.

**Yes.**

“You’re in my head.”

**Obviously.**

She wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted or intrigued. Eventually she decided on both.

“So this bond is mental as well as physical?” she asked.

**Yes.**

“Can you read the mind of your host?” she said.

**Yes.**

“To what extent?”

A pause.  **All extents.**

Dora couldn’t help but snort. “You’re a bad liar.”

**I am not lying,** it protested.

“It takes one to know one,” Dora said, “and I know a lie when I hear one.” She paused, unable to contain a grin. “Wow. We had known that bonding with the symbiote changed the brain activity of the subjects, but we had no idea it went this far. Do all of you have the same capabilities?”

Before the symbiote could reply, Dora stepped on a particularly painful pebble on the sidewalk. She winced and clutched her foot.

“Oh, great,” she said, seeing it was bleeding. The new hole in her was primed and ready for infection from San Francisco’s sidewalks.

**Here,** the symbiote said, and Dora reeled back as that blue slime emerged, covering her foot. She felt it in her wound, which was, surprisingly, not unpleasant. She felt rather than saw her injury heal, and then there was sensation in her other foot as well. A strange blue casing surrounded both feet, then changed to look like a pair of sneakers.

**This will be more comfortable,** it said.

“Oh,” Dora said. “Thank you.”

**Your pain is my pain,** the symbiote said.  **As I am, I share your sensations. Thoughts. Feelings. Touch. It’s a two-way street.**

“But you can’t read minds,” Dora said.

**I can,** it said defensively.  **Though I’ll admit the skill has…limitations. Deep thoughts and memories are difficult to surface. The here and now is easier to read.**

Deciding to experiment, Dora conjured the image of her old cat into her mind. Thinking about him was bittersweet.

**Dexter,** the symbiote said.  **Seems like he was an asshole.**

He was. He would scratch and hiss and bite anybody and everybody. But he was also sweet when he wanted to be.

**You’re sad, Dora.**

No, she wasn’t. At least, not entirely. It had been awful when he died. Both him and Dora were seven at the time. She had bawled for two days straight. But now she was alright, really. It was nice thinking about him.

**You’re strange,** the symbiote said.  **Make up your mind. It’s too confusing to be both sad and happy.**

“You’ve bonded with humans before,” Dora noted. She shuddered as images of those victims flashed in her mind. “Don’t you know the complications by now?”

**None of them were especially complicated,** the symbiote said.

“Those people  _ were _ complicated,” Dora argued. “All people are.”

**Not their feelings,** it said.  **They were only unhappy. Then afraid. The fear lasted until they died.**

**You’re afraid too, Dora,** it said.  **Of me. Of Drake. Of losing your offspring.**

There was no denying that: Dora was terrified, more than she ever had been her entire life. She had thought had reached her maximum level of fear when sneaking Eddie in. Then she thought she did when the alarms went off. Then when she was caught. Now she was thinking this was her peak, but at this point she didn’t want to get her hopes up.

**Dora,** the symbiote said.  **Hurry. Hungry.**

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Dora said, which wasn’t quite true, but running could put suspicion on her from passerby. It wasn’t really every day a lady in a lab coat went for a midnight run (or walk, for that matter, but which one was weirder?).

**Faster,** it said, and Dora felt its presence absorb her legs and she was running. Her arms dangled at her sides for a moment, but then instinct took over and she brought them up, pumping them back and force in time with her steps.

“Whoa!” Dora exclaimed as her speed increased even more, practically leaping more than she was running. “How— how are you doing that? None of the other tests—”

**They weren’t as good a match as you are,** it said.  **I could’nt use my abilities to even half of their full potential.**

Dora felt more questions stirring in her brain, so many things to learn that she never got the chance to in the lab, but more pressing than that was the fact she was almost home.

As per habit (and also out of paranoia), she looked both ways before crossing over to her side of the street. Instinctively she reached in her pocket for her keys, only to realize that those must’ve been lost to the elements along with her shoes.

That, or she had mistakenly left them in her purse, like she sometimes did. She envisioned the last place she had her purse. In her office. Suddenly she was hoping her keys were deep in the ocean. 

She checked her other pockets. The two items that had survived her trip were her cellphone and her glasses case. If there was one good thing Carlton Drake had ever done for her, it was convince her to get a waterproof phone case.

**What are you waiting for?** the symbiote said.

“Can’t you tell?” Dora said. “I don’t have my keys.”

**Of course I could tell,** it said, its second lie as obvious as the first.  **I was being facetious.**

Dora pulled out her phone.

**What are you doing?**

“I’m going to call Abbey,” she said. “Hopefully her phone will be enough to wake her up.” But knowing her, Dora thought, she was probably up past her curfew anyway.

Dora dialed. The phone rang once, twice, before Abbey picked up.

“Mom?” she said, having the decency to at least fake a yawn. “Why are you calling? It’s late. I didn’t think you were working late today.”

“I wasn’t,” Dora said. “Something just…came up. But that’s not the point; the point is I’m locked out. Could you let me in, sweetheart?”

Dora heard a bed creaking. “Did you lose your keys?”

“I might have just forgotten them,” Dora said. Not technically a lie.

“You totally lost them,” Abbey said, her voice a mix of amusement and aggravation. “This is why I’ve been saying we should have a spare under the mat—”

“And I’ve already told you, that’s dangerous,” Dora interjected.

“No, it’s practical,” Abbey said. “Remember that time I got locked out of the house for, like, hours because I forgot my keys inside? And then I had to take Theo to Alexandra’s house, and you were doing a late shift so you couldn’t even come get us until the next day?”

Dora pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, Abbey, I remember. Let’s talk about this later, okay?”

“You mean never?”

“No, I mean later.”

The door opened.

“You usually mean never,” Abbey said, making a show of ending the call.

“Well right now I mean later,” Dora said. Her stomach grumbled. “And right now, I need food.”

**Yes.**

“Mom, it’s the middle of the night.”

**Meat.**

“And you’re soaking wet. Mom?”

She stepped into the house, the strange sneakers on her feet disappearing as she did.

**Dora, meat.**

Dora ignored both of them, opening the fridge. Salad? She dug it out and took a bite. The thing inside her bristled. She tossed it aside. Cheese? There was a small block of it on the second shelf. She took an experimental bite, then she was shoveling the whole thing in her mouth.

Eggs? They were raw. That was gross. Her stomach rumbled. Raw was fine. She crunched into its shell and drank down its insides in a manner that something in her decided was deeply satisfying.

“Holy shit, Mom!” Abbey cried as Dora bit into another one.

“Language,” she said, slurping down its contents. As she swallowed it down her body shuddered, and she rushed to the bathroom and hurled into the toilet.

“Mom, what the hell,” Abbey said. “You can’t eat  _ raw  _ eggs!”

“I know,” Dora said.

**You can’t eat them raw?**

“No, of course I can’t eat them raw!” Dora said, exasperated.

**Still, you have to eat something else.**

“I—” Dora was about to protest when her body rose up, like a marionette being pulled by strings.

“Mom?” Abbey whispered, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“One second, sweetie,” Dora said, her body pulled back into the kitchen.

Her hands reached out of their own accord, shifting through cabinets.

“Stop that!” Dora hissed. “You’re scaring my daughter!”

**That’s your daughter?** the symbiote said, still puppeteering her arms.  **She does’nt appear to share your genetics.**

“She—” Dora’s response was cut off yet again as her own hand shoved almonds into her mouth. She was tempted to spit them out, but her own hunger won over, and she fervently crunched down on them.

“Mom!” Abbey cried. “Stop, oh my  _ God, _ what are you doing?”

_ Stop it! _ Dora’s mind cried out, and she was suddenly aware of control coming back to her.

Dora slowly set the box of almonds down.

“Mom,” Abbey said slowly. “Are you okay? Do I need to call 911?”

“No, no, I’m fine Abbey,” Dora said as convincingly as she could, but she could tell Abbey was far from satisfied with that answer. “I’m just…really hungry.”

“I can see that, Mom! You just ate raw eggs!”

“I, I have…” Dora paused. “Someone…”

“Someone?”

“Something! Something, I mean. A, um.” She searched for a half-truth. “I think I might have a parasite.”

Abbey wrinkled her nose. “What, like a tapeworm?”

“Something like that,” Dora said. “Nothing to worry about, it’s just messing with my metabolism. Making me hungrier.”

She wasn’t quite as hungry anymore, or as adrenaline-rushed, or as distracted by the voice in her head, so Dora was suddenly much more aware of how much she was sweating. Quickly she shed her coat, then moved to turn the AC down.

“You look like you have a fever,” Abbey said.

**She’s correct,** the symbiote said.  **But you’ll be fine tomorrow. Your body is just adjusting.**

“I’ll be fine?” Dora said, trying to sound reassuring, but also phrasing it as a question to her new…roommate.

**Yes,** it said.  **You’re still useful. I won’t let you die yet.**

“How reassuring,” she grumbled.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, sweetie,” Dora said with a wave of her hand. “Just… How about you go back to bed? I’ll be up in a minute.”

Abbey paused, the gears obviously turning in her brain. “Okay,” she finally said. “But, uh, you’re not lying to me, right?”

“I’m fine,” Dora repeated. “Just go get some rest, honey.”

Dora let out a sigh as soon as she heard the door to Abbey’s room close. She made her way to the laundry room, where she knew there was still a basket stacked with freshly washed clothes. Her outfit was still soaking wet and cold against her skin, even though her insides felt like they were burning. First she should get some dry clothes on, then she could figure out what the hell to do next.

Dora was about to shed the rest of her clothes when a thought came to her. “Can you, uh…” She struggled for the right wording. “Is there a way you could go to sleep, for just a minute?”

**Why?**

“I need to change,” she said.

**I can’t go to sleep,** it said.  **Just change.**

“I can’t,” she said.

**Yes, you can,** it said.  **It’s very easy. You’ve done it before.**

“I’ve— wait, what?”

**Those memories are very clear right now,** it said.  **You’ve done this countless times before. It shouldn’t be an issue now, especially when there’s so much else to take care of.**

“Have you— do you see—”

**I see, yes,** it said.  **So there’s no reason to be embarrassed now.**

Dora wanted to argue further, but there was really no way she could. So instead she changed as quickly as she could, trying to keep her own eyes off her body.

**That won’t help,** it said.  **I have enhanced senses. If I chose, I could see your body without your help.**

“Well don’t choose!” Dora snapped. “This is very private!”

It paused.  **Fine,** it said.  **I won’t be here much longer anyway.**

Dora stepped out of the laundry room in a simple shirt and t-shirt, not something she commonly wore on a weekday (she preferred to look a bit more presentable). “What do you mean?” she said.

But there wasn’t a chance for it to answer, because suddenly there was a knock at the door.


	2. Knock, Knock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between being discovered as a traitor by her boss, being fired by said boss, and then being bonded to an alien symbiote, Dora had been assuming the night couldn't get much worse.
> 
> That was before she heard a knock on her door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot to mention this last chapter, but my plan is to update this every saturday!
> 
> oh, and i also have a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17XywKaSbcAVt6iJwNtk-UcEIv4Q2qW7) for this! in case anyone wants to give it a listen

Without hesitation, Dora rushed upstairs. She swung open Abbey’s door. “Abbey!” she whisper-shouted.

Abbey shot up from her bed, obviously not asleep yet. “What, mom? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Dora said. “But we have to go,  _ now _ .”

The knocking became more insistent.

“Mom—?”

**Escaping would be faster without them, Dora.**

Dora extended her hand.

“Abbey,” she said. “You and me, we’re going to wake up your brother, and then all three of us are going to leave. Understood?”

Abbey looked from Dora to her hand and back again, her eyes growing wider each time. Then her gaze shifted to the door across the hall, and she nodded and took Dora’s hand.

Across the hall was Theo’s room. As much as Abbey had complained, Dora was suddenly more grateful than ever for their rooms not having locks. She and Abbey burst in, and Dora considered waking Theo up, but another knock on the door further hastened her pace. She scooped him into her arms. He was small and scrawny anyway, but he seemed even lighter than usual.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

**Just hurry up,** the symbiote said.

There was no arguing with that. Dora rushed back down the stairs, Theo in her arm, Abbey tugging along behind her. The best bet for their escape was the basement. Drake’s specialists were highly trained, so it could be assumed that they had all entrances and exits covered. But then there was the bulkhead, which was inconveniently placed behind the backyard’s shed. There was a slim chance that had been overlooked. A very, very slim chance. But it was the best chance they had. She just had to be fast—

The door burst off its hinges. Men wearing all black stormed in, guns pointed and at the ready. Dora recognized some of them. She remembered Darren. There was a time she had talked to him about her kids.

“Are they yours?” he had said, referring to her lock screen, which of course was a picture of her kids.

“What?” she had said out of surprise. “Oh! Um, yes, they are. Theo and Abbey.”

“How old are they?”

“Abbey’s fifteen, and Theo’s just turning eight this month,” she said. “He has his mind set on a Superman birthday party.”

“That’s adorable,” Darren had said, a lighthearted laugh escaping him.

“Hands in the air!” Darren shouted, him and the other men pointing their weapons at Dora.

Dora raised the hand holding Abbey’s. The one supporting Theo could only stay where it was.

“Mom?” Abbey said, voice shaking. “What’s going on?”

“It’s gonna be okay, sweetie,” Dora said, “just do what they say.”

**They’re pointing weapons at you,** the symbiote said.

_ No shit, _ Dora thought.

Without further commentary, Dora felt the symbiote’s presence slide into her arm. Her hand detached from Abbey’s and balled into a fist. Then from somewhere inside her  _ it _ wriggled out, like it had when making her shoes, but this time it encased her fist. Dora watched in awe as a gold-streaked blue hand took the place of her own. She looked from her hand and back to the men.

“Oh,” she said.

A tendril creeped from her waist and set Theo behind her as her other hand was encased.

“Doctor Skirth,” Darren said. “Come quietly and no one will be hurt.”

She wasn’t sure who moved, her or the symbiote. But her body lunged forward, clocking Darren square in the jaw.

“Abbey, upstairs!” Dora shouted.

Tendrils shot from both her arms, wrapping around two of the men’s necks. She pulled, and they fell to the ground with two harmonious cracks.

There were gunshots, and by instinct Dora spun around. Of course, of course, Abbey hadn’t gone upstairs; she was frozen with fear, and Theo was awake now, eyes dazed and confused for a moment, then full of tears as the loud noises started up. Dora wrapped her arms around them.

“Please, please, please…”

The gunshots kept coming, and Dora felt…something. But the feeling wasn’t like bullets. It was more like pellets, or the foam ammo in those toy guns Abbey used to play with.

Despite the odd feeling, she could still recognize the items as bullets. She felt them somewhere outside her skin; she felt the shape of them, size of them, material of them. Then she felt them moving, reorganizing, and then all at once they were gone, and there were seven distinct thumps.

**There are more coming,** it said.  **Leave the offspring. They only serve to slow you down.**

“Absolutely not,” Dora said firmly. “They’re coming with me.”

It strongly emanated a feeling of discontentment with this decision, one that Dora almost felt herself getting swept up in.

“That’s final,” Dora said, voice shaking.

It didn’t bother to reply. It swept both of them into a tendril. Abbey, seemingly unfrozen, screamed. Theo’s tears turned to wails.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Dora soothed, her legs moving her up the stairs. “Mom’s got you, it’s okay.”

**Make them stop. The sound is annoying.**

“I’m trying,” Dora muttered.

**Try harder.**

They made it to the top of the stairs just as Dora heard a collection of footsteps downstairs. Dora’s attempts to shush Theo and Abbey hastened, but to no avail. She recognized the muffled shouts of “Up there!” from downstairs.

**Time’s up,** it said.

With those words it took further control of her legs, encasing them, and then she was sprinting toward the window.

“Holy—”

Dora braced herself. The window shattered at her impact, and then gravity, as it always did, started pulling her down. Abbey’s screams grew to a shriek. Dora found herself yelling too, the realization of her imminent death not sitting too well with her.

**Oh, not you too,** it said, exasperated.

Tendrils shot from Dora’s feet, latching onto the roof of the house across the street.

“Wh—” Dora started, before her body was violently jerked. She screamed again as she was momentarily turned upside-down. Then she was righted on her neighbor’s sloped roof. The tendril holding Theo and Abbey retracted to a large arm. 

Dora pulled them closer. Abbey was breathing heavily, and Theo had gone from crying to sniffling.

“Mom,” Abbey said. “What. The  _ fuck. _ Was that?”

“Abbey!” Dora said, putting her free hand to Theo’s ear.

“I think a curse or two is warranted right now, Mom!” Abbey shouted. “What the hell just happened? You come home soaking and eating raw eggs, and then there are guns, and now—”

Abbey gestured wildly at the arm holding her and Theo.

“Um, yeah, that’s—”

**No time,** the symbiote said, a tendril extending from her arm and tugging them to the next roof.

“You need to stop cutting me off,” Dora said as they landed.

**I wouldn’t if you didn’t talk so much,** it said, swinging them to the next roof.  **Also, I could move much faster without the extra weight.**

“Don’t even think about it,” Dora warned.

_ “Mom,” _ Abbey said. “Who are you talking to? What the hell is going on?”

Dora struggled for a moment to find the words, especially while the thing she was trying to explain was sporadically swinging from building to building.

“Honey, you remember the parasite I mentioned?” Dora said. “In actuality, it’s what the Life Foundation calls a symbiote. There are three of them, actually. They were retrieved on one of the foundation’s space explorations, and since then we’ve been studying them. This one got… _ attached _ to me, and the company isn’t too happy about that.”

Silence on the other end.

“I’d say you’re lying,” Abbey finally said, “but you’re a terrible liar.”

**She’s right, you know,** the symbiote said.

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Dora grumbled.

“What?”

“Oh, no, not you, sweetheart,” Dora said. “I was talking to, um…”

“The symbiote,” Abbey said.

“Symbiote,” Theo echoed, nodding as if he understood.

“Yes, the symbiote,” Dora said.

**Do humans usually repeat themselves so much?**

“Anyway,” Dora said, “you two need a place to go while I figure things out.”

“Are we staying at Gramma’s?” Theo asked. He was kicking his legs nervously, but the prospect of a trip to his favorite grandmother’s house still seemed to excite him.

“No, we can’t go there,” Dora said. “Drake knows of my immediate family members. Realistically, he probably knows the distant ones, too. To keep you two safe I need to take you somewhere he wouldn’t know to look.”

They finally paused on the roof of an apartment complex, and gently Dora set down Abbey and Theo. The symbiote retracted back inside her, its presence settling somewhere in the back of her head.

“Someone in San Francisco,” Dora said, more to herself than anyone else. “Not family, not one of Abbey or Theo’s friends.”

**Just leave them,** the symbiote insisted.  **There are more important things to worry about.**

“If you’ve really got somewhere to be,” Dora said, “then help me figure something out.”

**This isn’t a place for compromise. There are things I have to do.**

“What, your schedule is too full?” Dora mocked. “If you haven’t noticed, there are people in this city willing to do anything to get to you, and that includes—” She lowered her voice. “That includes hurting my kids.”

**What do they matter? They are’nt even your offspring.**

Anger spilled into Dora’s gut, boiling and hot.

**Stop that.**

_ Stop what? _

**That. That feeling. I don’t like it.**

_ It’s your fault. _

**Mine?**

“Yes, yours!” Dora shouted. “Is there no compassion in your species? Is that it? Is that what our studies were missing when we wondered why symbiosis was so utterly failing?”

To that it was silent. Finally.

“Mom?” Theo said. “You’re being weird.”

“I  _ know,” _ she said. Then, calmer, “I know. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Abbey looked from her to Theo. “Hey, dude,” she said, “let’s give Mom space for a minute.”

“What?” he asked. “I wanna stay here.”

“If you step a few measly feet away from Mom with me, I’ll let you play games on my phone,” Abbey said.

“Okay,” Theo said, and Abbey took him by the hand and led him those few measly feet away from Dora.

With the two of them at some distance, Dora took a deep breath. It was too late now to panic; what she had to do was think of someone she could bring her kids to, someone they would be safe with.

Colleagues weren’t an option, and nor was family. Did she have any friends Drake didn’t know about? To be fair, she didn’t have that many friends anyway. Who was there? Someone she didn’t talk to enough to put them on Drake’s shitlist, but someone close enough she could trust to take care of her kids. Who could—?

**Dawn,** the symbiote said.

Dora looked out the horizon, but the sun was far from rising.

**No, dumbass,** it said.  **Dawn. From bookclub.**

“Oh,” Dora said. “Um. Thank you.”

It didn’t answer, but she felt its persistent discontentment become just a little less persistent.

Dawn. From bookclub. That would make it about ten years since they last communicated in any fashion, their last conversation most likely being an email promising they would get together soon. But if there was one thing about Dawn, it was that she had always been a sweetheart.

Dora unlocked her phone and opened up Facebook for the first time in what was probably a few years, hoping that Dawn’s profile hadn’t changed much in that time. To her relief, Dawn’s location was still set as San Francisco, and her cell phone number (which seemed to have changed since Dora had put her in her contacts) was also listed.

Dawn didn’t pick up the first call. Or the second one. But on Dora’s third attempt, she heard a groggy and familiar voice through the speaker.

“Hello?” Dawn said.

“Hi Dawn, this is Dora,” Dora said, incredibly glad she had encrypted her phone the days before she contacted Eddie. “I know it’s been awhile, but I’m in a bit of a pinch right now and I could use some help.”

“Dora?” Dawn said. Then, “Oh my God, Dora! It’s been so long, how are you? How are the kids? Oh, gosh, they’ve got to be so old since I last saw them…Well, pictures of them that is…”

**I’m regretting my suggestion already.**

“Yes, it’s been too long,” Dora said, “and I hate to call just to ask for a favor, but…”

“Oh, right!” Dawn said. “In a pinch. What do you need?”

“I’m,” Dora started, considering how to phrase it. “I need you to watch my kids.”

“What?” Dawn said, her friendly tone dissipating. “You— For how long?”

“I don’t know,” Dora admitted. “But I need them to be safe.”

A pause on the other end. Then, “Okay. Okay, I’ll…text you my address?”

“Yes. Thank you,” she said with earnest.

“Yeah, sure, just…get over here.”

The receiver clicked on the other end, and then within a few seconds she got a text with an address. She sighed in relief.

“Abbey, Theo,” she said, turning to look at them again.

Theo handed Abbey back her phone, which Abbey took with a sigh. “Where to, Mom?” she asked.

“We’re going to Dawn’s,” she said.

“Dawn?” Theo said, scrunching up his nose. “Dish soap lady.”

“I thought you hadn’t talked to her in years,” Abbey said. “You haven’t even mentioned her since I was, like, five.”

“Well, she’s our best bet right now,” Dora said. “So you two are going to stay with her for a little bit.”

“What?” Theo said, pouting. “I don’t want to stay with dish soap lady.”

“Theo, don’t call her that,” Dora said. “It’s rude.”

Theo crossed his arms. “I still don’t wanna go!”

Abbey crossed her arms too. “Yeah, me neither. We don’t know her.”

“You are both going whether you like it or not.”

“No,” Abbey said.

“Yes,” Dora said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Yes!” Dora said, a tendril sprouting from her arm and grabbing both of them.

**Let’s get a move on,** the symbiote said.  **This is taking too long.**

“Finally something I can agree with,” Dora muttered.

Another tendril shot from her free hand, lifting her and her kids into the air. Abbey screamed again, a reaction Dora was starting to think wouldn’t change, no matter how many times this happened. With hope, this wouldn’t be a frequent occurrence. But if the night continued on as it had begun, Dora thought she would need much more than just hope.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what i like about movie adaptations is that you can mix and mash all sorts of comic gold and garbage without having to continue the current comic’s story...that's my goal here today
> 
> (also i'm still too shy to reply to comments but they mean the absolute world to me!! thank you all!!)


	3. Cooperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With no other options left, Dora leaves her kids' safety in the hands of a woman she hasn't talked to in years. And to top everything off, she can't even stay with them. 
> 
> Because she has to return to the Life Foundation.

“I hate this,” Abbey said.

“I know,” Dora said, knocking on the door. “I don’t like it either. But please, please put up with it, okay? It’s to keep you both safe.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Abbey said, shoving her hands in the pockets of her pajama pants.

 **I’m starting to like her,** the symbiote said.

The door swung open, Dawn greeting them. Notably her hair was shorter and dyed bright red, instead of its usual brown.

“Hi,” she said awkwardly.

Before Dora could respond, Dawn’s eyes moved to focus on her kids, and her indistinct and sleepy expression turned to a grin.

“Hey!” she said. “Theo, Abbey! Oh man, it’s been…forever, really, because we haven’t met before, but I’ve seen your pictures on Facebook. You’ve grown up so much! How old are you now?”

“I’m eight!” Theo said excitedly, obviously enjoying the attention.

“Do you have wifi?” Abbey asked.

“What?” Dawn said. “Oh, right, of course. Um, the password’s on the fridge, actually.”

“Great,” Abbey said, decidedly letting herself in. Theo followed behind her, the excitement of attention leaving him, replaced with the excitement of internet connection.

“Thank you so much, Dawn,” Dora said. “I’m—”

 **Getting going,** the symbiote finished. One leg raised and she dramatically swiveled around, marching purposefully in the opposite direction.

“I have to go,” she called over her shoulder. “You can, um, handle this?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dawn called back, unconvincingly.

Dora heard the door shut way behind her, and then the symbiote’s pace hastened.

“What are you doing?” Dora hissed.

**There’s something you need to do for me.**

“No, I need to go take care of my kids.”

**They’re with Dawn now. They’ll be safe, so you’re free to help me.**

“Help you? Help you with what?”

 **There are two things, actually,** it said. **First I must retrieve my ally. Then I need one of Carlton Drake’s rockets. You will help me accomplish these goals.**

“What?” Dora said. “No, no, definitely not. I just got away from there, the last thing I need to do is go back.”

 **I helped you escape because I hated being held there,** it said. **Now I have to return and complete my mission.**

“Mission? What mission?”

**That’s none of your concern.**

“If you’re going to make me help you, I deserve to know what’s going on,” Dora said.

The symbiote’s pace quickened again, Dora’s march down the sidewalk turning to a jog.

“Hey, _wait!”_ Dora protested. Still having control of her hands, they flailed in the air, reaching for anything to latch onto. They found a tree branch, which they wrapped around tightly.

She could feel it trying to take control of her arms, too, and put all her focus into maintaining control. By some miracle she was able to keep her hands clasped around the branch while her legs struggled to tear her off of it.

 **Stop that!** the symbiote said. **You’re being unreasonable.**

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable,” Dora said, her voice straining, “for me to not want to go back a place where everyone wants to kill me!”

 **You’ll be fine,** it said lamely.

“You,” Dora said, trying to muster her minuscule upper body strength to pull herself further toward the tree, “are an _awful_ liar!”

Blue, inky tendrils shot from Dora’s legs, wrapping around a neighboring street light and pulling her in that direction. Her grip faltered and she was pulled, and for a moment she felt the familiar feeling of falling before the symbiote righted her.

“You can’t just—”

 **But I can,** it said. **Here, look at this.**

Dora’s legs jumped into the air and her body twisted around into a spin.

“Tell me,” Dora said, “are all symbiotes this immature, or are you an outlier in your species?”

She felt its presence on her back, and then something slithered out from her shirt and over to her face. It took Dora a moment to process what she was looking at, but when she did, she screamed.

The symbiote’s mass had formed into a tendril similar to the others it had created, but tacked on the end was a grotesque face. Its mouth was curved into an ever-present smile, rows of sharp, animal-like teeth grinning at her. With this form its golden streaks looked more like veins, an image that didn’t at all help with its creep-factor.

Its eyes were the only things that didn’t make Dora’s stomach churn in fear. They were wide and white and shaped like almonds with sharper ends, and when looking closer she could see that they were speckled with color. Like opals.

 **“Dora,”** it said, snapping her back to her fear. She screamed again, and its eyes scrunched in frustration.

**“Dora, stop that. It’s annoying.”**

Slowly her scream died down, but her heart was still racing.

 **“Dora,”** it said again, and she felt its presence slither inside her head, like it was looking for something. **“I saved your children,”** it said after the brief pause. **“Your allies. You will help me do the same.”**

“I…” She leaned against the street light, arms crossed and brow furrowed in thought. This didn’t feel right, not at all. Who knew what the symbiotes would do once in contact with each other? Dora sure didn’t, since that wasn’t one of the areas they had decided to study. Drake had gone right to the idea of alien space suits, fueled by his self-serving ambition. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? It had never been what Dora had convinced herself it was.

She looked into the symbiote’s milky white eyes. She couldn’t tell what it was thinking, not even with whatever neural link they had between them.

She sighed and said, “You did save my kids.”

**“Yes. I did.”**

“Well,” Dora said, averting her eyes, “thank you for that. It means a lot.”

It blinked at her for a long second, then said, **“You’re going to cooperate.”** It was more a question than a statement; it was asking for confirmation.

“Yes,” Dora said. “But no more body snatching without asking me first, okay?”

 **“I can’t make any promises,”** it said, dissolving back under her skin. **If you’re troublesome again, I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.**

Sighing, Dora started toward the street and was about to hail a cab when she heard sirens. The thought came to her to check the news, so she pulled out her phone. She had to read the headline twice before clicking it.

There were new reports of a monster eating the head off of a civilian, then diving into the bay. Then, more reports of the same creature scaling a building, with armed forces on the way to subdue it, and investigators looking at certain subjects in relation to the incident. People like…

“Shit,” Dora said, shoving her phone in her pocket. Of course, of course they’d look into the two people whose houses got broken into right around the same time this _thing_ appeared. “Hey, um, right now would be a good time for you to take control.”

 **Gladly,** it said.

Its form began to encase her from bottom to top. For a moment Dora expected it to stop at her feet, but it quickly covered her entirely, surrounding her in a vaguely slick casing. She was raised up at least to be at least a foot taller (she could tell her own body hadn’t grown, but also that her feet still felt like they were on the ground). Her eyesight differed too, in that her field of view was suddenly much larger. (That was interesting — even though it was covering her face like a mask would, it was more like she was seeing with its eyes rather than through them.)

 **“Up and away,”** it said aloud, making a running leap onto the side of a building. Dora cringed as its clawed fingers crunched into a window, but her worry turned to awe as the symbiote launched them into the air and onto the rooftops.

Cars below them screeched to halts in the streets, drivers leaning out of their windows to catch a glimpse of the spectacle. Some got back in and sped off, others just stared, and even more took out their phones to document them.

“Maybe you should be less conspicuous,” Dora suggested as the symbiote hopped from one roof to the other.

 **“I will,”** it said. **“Have some faith, Dora.”**

Dora scoffed (which was almost as weird as talking when she was within what was basically a pile of living goo) but didn't argue. As much distrust she had for the symbiote, if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that the it didn't want to get caught any more than she did.

As it continued building-hopping, Dora noticed the gold fade slightly from its form. Now when people looked up, they only did a quick double-take before writing it off as a trick of the light.

Soon it found its way to the bridge and crawled along its underside, finding holds in the cross-bracing. Halfway across it unlatched one hand and stared down at the water, then back up at the bridge. It scoffed and shook its head, then went back to scuttling along the bridge’s bottom. Dora could sense it emanating a feeling she couldn’t quite place.

“What are you thinking about?” she said out of curiosity.

 **“What?”** it said.

“What are you thinking about?” she repeated.

 **“Nothing,”** it said. **“Except for the quickest way to the Life Foundation.”**

Dora thought of her normal route to the building, then conjured the image of the backroads one she took when she was running late.

 **“Hm,”** it said. Then, after a pause, **“Thank you.”**

Huh. “You’re welcome,” Dora said.

* * *

 

Just from the outside, Dora could see that the foundation was teeming with life. Armed guards surrounded the facility at every possible entrance, most of them with some of the worst trigger discipline Dora had ever seen.

“A stealth approach would be best,” Dora said. “No breaking windows. That would definitely set off an alarm.”

 **“You don't think I know that?”** it said.

Before Dora could reply it shot out a tendril from each arm, wrapping them around two guards and pulling them up into the air and onto the rooftop where the symbiote perched. It grinned at the incapacitated pair, whose eyes widened in horror as they stared down its maw. (Dora, knowing the feeling, almost felt bad for them.) The symbiote narrowed its eyes at them, taking a long look before chucking them both over its shoulders.

“Are you really planning to take down all the guards individually?” Dora asked. “You could just—”

 **“Just sit back and relax,”** it snarled. **“I’m taking care of this—”**

The symbiote glanced back to where it had thrown the two guards. **“Dammit,”** it said, the previously ever-present grin turning to a frown. It sighed and leapt in the direction it had thrown the guards.

It exuded aggravation as it landed, a feeling so infectious Dora was having trouble not snapping at it. It picked up one of the guards, whose body was disturbingly mangled from the fall. Its index and middle fingers extended into tentacles, which slipped into the guard’s pocket to retrieve his company ID.

“Oh,” Dora said. “If that’s what you were planning, why did you, um…”

 **“This was also part of the plan,”** it said. (It was still a terrible liar.)

But that seemed to indicate the end of the discussion. A small part of Dora wanted to say something teasing, but a bigger part of her sensed that it wasn’t really the best time for that.

The symbiote leapt back in the direction of the facility, ending in front of the doors the guards had been keeping watch at. As soon as it landed, it retreated back inside Dora.

“Whoa, hey!” Dora hissed. “What are you doing?”

 **This is more stealthy,** it said. **Now swipe the card and keep your head down.**

“There are security cameras,” Dora said. “And more guards, who are definitely on the lookout for me. For you.”

 **If you’re caught, I’ll kill them,** it said simply. **But try not to be. I’m hoping for this to go smoother than last time.**

Dora swiped the ID card, and the door slid open.

“If I remember correctly,” she whispered, “breaking the glass wasn’t my idea.”

 **I was in a rush,** it said. **You should be too, Dora.**

Not feeling argumentative, Dora stepped into the facility without a word. With the will to leave as soon as possible driving her, she walked with purpose, keeping her head tilted to avoid eye contact. Normally most people wouldn’t be here at this hour, but the foundation was buzzing with activity, even more than when the first symbiote had been taken. She supposed that with her and Eddie’s identities known, Drake was in a rush to reobtain his specimens.

“This card won’t get us to the lab,” Dora whispered, anxiously rubbing it between her fingers.

 **Right,** the symbiote said.

A thin tendril snaked out from Dora’s ankle, slithering along the floor. It skirted between people's feet, pausing occasionally at a lab-coat-wearing employee. It halted at a scientist Dora vaguely recognized, then twisted up his leg until it peeked out of his shirt. The tendril leaned out to snatch his ID off his breast pocket. Then, like a tape measure being called back inside its container, it whipped back to Dora. It slithered over her wrist and placed the ID in her hand.

 **Here,** it said.

“Thank you,” Dora said, more out of habit than anything.

A difficult-to-place feeling radiated from the symbiote. Maybe more than one, actually, but the strongest one was giving Dora a confident pep in her step.

“Here we are,” Dora said as she came to the door. “Now just…” She pulled out the ID and put it over the scanner. To her relief, it was accepted and the door unlocked.

“Here we go,” she said.

 **You don’t have to narrate everything,** the symbiote said.

“I know,” Dora said. “It’s just…”

It was just that confidence she had been feeling was being overcome by anxiety, because the next part of this plan was crucial, and also unlikely to work.

 **You’re nervous because of the elevator’s hand scanner,** the symbiote said. **Don’t worry. I have a plan.**

That wasn’t especially reassuring, but Dora still clung to it as much as she could. She kept walking, still careful to keep her head down and her eyes low, which in the span of a few minutes she had gotten pretty good at.

“Hey!” someone said.

She froze, realizing she might have to retract that last statement. A hand grabbed her shoulder in a firm grip, and if she hadn’t already stopped in her tracks that would have done it.

“Could I see your ID, ma’am?”

 **Just act natural,** the symbiote said.

Dora turned around slowly, plastering a smile on her face.

“Hi,” she said, her voice at least three octaves higher than usual.

 **I said** **_natural!_ **

“Ma’am,” the man (a security guard) said, hand still on her shoulder, “I asked for your ID.”

She cleared her throat. “Uh, yes, of course, that’s right here…”

She pretended to fish around in her pocket and hissed, “Do something!”

“Excuse me?”

“What?” Dora said, gaze snapping back to the man.

“Did you say something?” the man said, raising a brow and crossing his arms.

“What? No,” Dora said, laughing nervously. “Did you?”

He gave her a brief once-over before he leaned over to speak into his shirt collar.

“All units, there is a suspicious character at the lab elevator, who may possibly be—”

A tendril shot out from Dora’s arm, a hand forming at the end to wrap around the guard’s neck. He choked on the last part of his sentence, walkie-talkie falling to the ground.

“What was that, Johnson?” The person on the other end said. “You cut out—”

In a moment of panicked clarity, Dora stomped on the walkie-talkie, splitting it into two useless halves. Then she turned back to the guard — Johnson — and tried her best to look intimidating.

“Johnson,” she said, voice faltering, “you’re going to take me to the lab, or…” She paused. “Or else,” she finished weakly.

He let out a wheezy chuckle. “Dora Skirth?” Johnson said. “We haven’t formally met, but I know you. You don’t even have the guts to do a measly human trial by yourself. You need someone stronger than you to pull the trigger.”

 **“Luckily,”** the symbiote said, form encasing Dora, **“I’m right here.”**

Johnson opened his mouth to scream, but the symbiote tightened its grip on his neck.

 **“Either you cooperate and live,”** the symbiote said, **“or you struggle and die. It’s your choice.”** Its grin widened. **“So what will it be?”** it asked.

One of Johnson’s hands clawed at the arm holding him, and the other pointed toward the elevator.

 **“Good choice,”** the symbiote said, loosening its grip just slightly. It swung Johnson toward the elevator, where he placed his hand on the scanner.

The symbiote retreated back inside Dora’s body, save for the hand, which was still wrapped around Johnson’s throat. She stepped into the elevator, where she offered Johnson another awkward smile as they descended.

“I tried to warn you,” she said, shrugging in faux-apology. Johnson’s face turned an enraged red, and Dora couldn’t stifle a snort.

Johnson was quiet as they walked to the lab, hands quivering in either rage or fear.

The sight of the lab doors brought about mixed feelings, many of them Dora’s own, some of them not hers at all.

“Are you nervous?” she whispered.

 **No,** it lied.

“Me either,” she lied.

“Who are you talking—” he choked out before a squeeze to his throat silenced him.

The symbiote dropped him unceremoniously to the ground, its hand morphing into that toothily-grinned face. Johnson coughed and rubbed at his neck with one hand, the other going to his side. A tendril from Dora’s stomach snatched the handgun on his belt, placing it in Dora’s hands.

“Thank you,” Dora said, the hint of a smile on her face.

 **“You’re welcome,”** the symbiote said.

 **“Now, Johnson,”** it said, moving closer to his face, **“you will escort Dora into the lab, peacefully and quietly. If you disobey, the death of you and everyone in the lab will be slow and painful. Do you understand?”**

Johnson’s eye twitched, but he nodded.

 **“Good,”** the symbiote said, receding backing under Dora’s flesh. **If he tries anything, I will kill him.**

“I know,” Dora said.

Johnson scoffed and stood up. “You’re a _freak,”_ he snarled. “You and that… _thing.”_

The symbiote bristled, and so did Dora, and for a second she thought that the combined anger would boil over. But a different feeling, a familiar one that always felt like a punch to the gut, kept her anger at bay.

“The door, please,” Dora said, keeping her voice as level as possible.

Johnson put his hand to the scanner, which flashed green before the lab doors opened. Behind it was the expected strange lighting and glass boxes, but there was an unfortunate addition to the usual setting: a crowd of armed guards, all their weapons pointed at Dora.

“Looks like my backup’s here,” Johnson said, lip curving into a smug smirk. “Now Dora, you have a choice,” he said, leaning in close. “Either you cooperate and live, or you struggle and die.”

Dora heard the click of guns cocking, the sound of which made a horrible pit in her stomach, but seemed to make Johnson all the more self-satisfied.

“It’s your choice,” he sneered. “So what’s it gonna be?”


	4. Fools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dora makes her return to the Life Foundation, properly meets yet another symbiote, and considers having a brief respite in the middle of such a chaotic night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17XywKaSbcAVt6iJwNtk-UcEIv4Q2qW7)

“If I were you, Dora,” Johnson said in her ear, “I would hand over the alien.”

“Symbiote,” she corrected, in an attempt to mask her fear.

_ “Whatever _ it is,” Johnson said, “you need to hand it over. Understand?”

Giving her no time to respond, a tendril extended from Dora’s arm, grabbing Johnson firmly by the neck and hurling him into the crowd. His body crashed into two guards, the impact knocking them into the glass of an empty cell. The other men moved to open fire, but already the symbiote was surrounding Dora, the bullets barely making it past the outermost layer of the creature’s gooey form.

Dora could feel the shells shifting and rearranging, and then all at once they were fired back. The men dramatically fell into a bloody pile, leaving only two remaining. The symbiote pointed a hand at them, and out from its nails shot two bullet-like projectiles, one for the chest of each man. Their bodies joined the pile, and the symbiote moved back underneath Dora’s skin.

“That was quick,” Dora said, weaving through the bodies as fast as she could.

**I like to be efficient,** the symbiote said.  **You should be, too. It won’t be long before someone trips the alarm.**

“Right,” Dora said, cringing as something squelched beneath her foot.

She of course knew where the last symbiote was. While the others had eventually taken to human hosts, that one had almost immediately rejected all of them. She and the other scientists resorted to returning it to the species of host it was first successful with, which yielded much better results.

Dora came to the glass box housing a lone rabbit. She punched in the code, relieved it hadn’t changed yet.

The symbiote appeared over her shoulder.  **“Hello,”** it said to the rabbit.

The rabbit’s nose twitched, and it gave a quiet chirp of recognition. The symbiote, satisfied, receded back into Dora.

**Now pick it up,** it said. Then, with an air of amusement,  **And hop to it.**

Dora snorted. “That was awful.”

**You laughed.**

“I did not,” she protested, scooping the rabbit into her arms.

**You did,** it insisted.

“No, you’ll have to do better than that to get a real laugh,” Dora said.

**Hm.**

Dora stepped out of the cell, then paused, looking down at the rabbit. It was oddly calm for being in a stranger’s arms, but she could only assume that was the influence of the symbiote.

“What now?” she asked.

**We get out of here,** it said.  **My ally needs a better host. And I…**

Dora’s stomach growled. “Hungry,” she concluded.

**Hungry,** it agreed, its form coating her from head to toe.

Seeming to decide that stealth was no longer required, the symbiote barreled out of the lab doors and through a window with brute strength alone, using its claws to latch onto the rocky side of the foundation. It was like Dora’s first escape, but maybe more elegant.

When it got close enough, it latched a tendril onto the bridge. With one arm it held the rabbit, and with its other three limbs it scurried across the bottom of the bridge.

Springing out from under the bridge, it shot out another tentacle, which found purchase on a building’s roof. It propelled itself over the building, and then let gravity do the rest of the work.

“Holy shit,” Dora said as it set down, once again receding under her skin. Far enough away from danger that her mind could process other sensations, Dora noticed her heart beating rapidly. Maybe it was the adrenaline talking, but in that moment she felt a strange sense of pride. She looked down, face breaking into a smile at the sight of the rabbit cradled in her arms.

“We did it,” she said.

**You…** It paused.  **Yes. We did.**

The adrenaline and pride were starting to wear off, being replaced with something like uncertainty.

“You said this symbiote needs a new host?” she asked.

**“Yes,”** it said, head sprouting from her shoulder this time. It reared its menacing grin toward the rabbit and said,  **“Dispose of your current host. If we’re going to accomplish our mission, you need to be stronger.”**

The rabbit stared at it blankly. Then, without warning, its face changed. Black veins protruded along its neck, and its eyes went stark white before stretching wide into opal-esque disks. Its mouth stretched too, growing longer and wider until it revealed a row of canine-like fangs.

**“No,”** it said. Something about its voice was more disconcerting than that of the other symbiote. It was more…inhuman.

**“What?”** Dora’s symbiote said.

**“No,”** the rabbit repeated.  **“Host is good.”**

“ **Don’t tell me you’re being** **_sentimental,”_ ** Dora’s symbiote snarled.  **“You always do this. You and the other one.”**

The rabbit hissed, which was what finally prompted Dora’s fight or flight. She shrieked and threw the rabbit across the roof of the building. Upon impact there was an almost humorous splat, and then it was motionless, its wide eyes and grin gone but the veins still present on its neck.

“Oh, shit,” Dora said.

**“Don’t feel guilty,”** the symbiote said.  **“That host wouldn’t have survived another day, even out here.”**

Dora approached the rabbit, a part of her driven to make amends somehow.

Suddenly the rabbit sprung to life, eyes glazed over with black and yellow. Its mouth opened wide to scream at Dora, and then it leapt off the roof. She rushed to the ledge only to see it descending down the side of the building, a thin tendril slowing its fall before it reached the ground and scurried away.

She and the symbiote stared over the ledge for a long moment until the symbiote simply said,  **“Shit.”**

That was yet another specimen gone to wild. Previously that had been concerning for a number of reasons — Drake’s outrage, the already low number of specimens to study being decreased further, and the fact that no one knew what the symbiotes were capable of — but now it was worrying for a different reason, that mostly being that Dora  _ did _ know what the symbiotes were capable of.

**“Don’t worry,”** her symbiote said.  **“It won’t get far. Soon it will realize it must change hosts, and then it will come running back.”**

“If that host isn’t suitable,” Dora said, “then why wouldn’t it change? Wouldn’t you?”

**“Of course I would,”** it said.  **“But that one is sentimental. Emotional.”** It receded back into her shoulder.

“What’s so wrong with it liking the host?” Dora asked, part of her genuinely curious, another defiant.

**Forming an emotional attachment to the host is…absurd,** the symbiote said.  **It’s inefficient. It’s foolish.**

It paused, that familiar but unplaceable feeling rolling off of it.

**_I_ ** **am not foolish,** it said.

* * *

The symbiote, its form encasing Dora, jumped from building to building. It didn’t tell Dora where they were going, but somehow she could tell, even before the streets became familiar. It stopped its roof-hopping a few houses away from Dora’s home, taking perch on the slant of a roof.

**“Hm,”** the symbiote said, squinting down at the flashing lights and yellow tape.  **“Police. And paramedics.”**

“Shit,” Dora said. “We’re probably all over the news.”

**“Yes,”** it said slowly, seemingly more to itself than Dora.  **“Both of us.”** After a pause, it continued,  **“They’re blocking the main entrances. But your windows are free, and they would be easy to get by anyway—”**

“No, no,” Dora said. “We are not going to make ourselves more known to the authorities, not more than we already have.”

**“Dora,”** it said, teeth clenched.  **“Hungry.”**

“Yeah,” Dora said absentmindedly, considering food options. A stop at the grocery store would work — that is, if she had any money on her. For a moment there was a consideration in the back of her mind that the symbiote might just be able to eat a few policemen, but she quickly swatted that idea away. What was left was going back to Dawn’s place, which was—

**“Yes,”** the symbiote said, already on the move.  **“Dawn’s.”**

“Wait, wait, wait!” Dora said. “I don’t want my kids to see you like—“

**“Yes, they’ll be frightened of me,”** the symbiote said.  **“I’m not an idiot, Dora. I won’t let them see me.”**

“Thank you,” Dora said. She sighed. “They’re young, I don’t know how they would handle it.”

**“I doubt they would handle it any better were they grown.”**

“You’re probably right,” Dora said, huffing a small laugh.

**“I know I am,”** it said.  **“Humans are cowardly in the face of things they don’t understand.”**

“That’s—” Dora started, but then paused. “That’s not entirely fair.”

**“But it’s true, Dora,”** it said.  **“You’ve experienced it. Your daughter has experienced. Your son has experienced it.”** Its smile dropped into a frown.  **“Your world is** **_ugly,”_ ** it sneered.

Dora didn’t have a response to that. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach, one she could recognize all too well as her own, and one that kept her from protesting.

There was silence until they reached Dawn’s, the symbiote crouching on the roof, looking out in the direction of the bridge.

**“But,”** it said,  **“the bay is somewhat appealing.”** It receded under her skin.  **Have you ever considered swimming there?**

Dora snorted. “If you mean swimming under the bridge — which I know you mean — then no, absolutely not.”

**You should,** it said.  **Before the rocket.**

“The rocket,” Dora echoed. “What did you need that for, again?”

Uneasiness rolled off of it.  **That doesn’t matter. Get some food, hug your kids, and then get a move on.**

“Don’t dodge the question,” Dora said.

The symbiote didn’t reply, instead extending a tendril that allowed Dora to slowly drop down the side of the building. Taking control of her body, it walked to the front door and knocked.

Dora heard a muffled, “Jesus, really?” before the door opened to reveal an especially disheveled Dawn.

“Hi, Dawn,” Dora said, putting on her most apologetic smile. “Could I come in and grab some food? My house is…unavailable at the moment.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Dawn said. “Local news sites already have articles up about it. Between you and that Edwin guy’s apartment, people are starting to worry.”

“It’s all fine,” Dora tried to assure her, also deciding it wasn’t the best time to correct her on names.

“You’re not very convincing, Dora,” she said.

Dora sighed. “Dawn, please. Could I come in?”

Dawn let out an unfriendly huff from her nose, but she opened the door to let Dora in. As soon as her eyes found the cabinets, all sense of civility left her. She swung open one door, frantically searching for something to satiate her appetite. She pushed aside cans and containers, their contents wholly unappealing, until she saw a package of chocolate chip cookies. Dora made quick work of the first few cookies, but the symbiote seemed unsatisfied with her pace. Its form encased just her face, where its jaw unhinged and allowed for all the contents of the package to be scarfed down in one movement.

“Dora,” Dawn said, distracting Dora from her contentment at being full for the first time that night. “What. The  _ fuck _ . Was that.”

“It’s a long story,” she said.

**Which you don’t have time to tell.**

“Yes, you’re right,” Dora said reluctantly.

“What?” Dawn said.

“Oh, no, not you,” she said.

_ “What?” _ Dawn repeated.

“Like I said, a long story,” Dora said. “Um. Thank you again.” A tendril extended for her back, grabbing a second package of cookies. “I guess we’re taking these.”

Dora paused. “Are the kids asleep?”

Dawn’s brows knitted together in concern. “They should be. And I hope they are, because whatever’s going on with you is not something they need to see.”

**Too late for that,** the symbiote said.

“You read my mind,” Dora mumbled.

“I’m glad you agree,” Dawn said. “But, like,  _ seriously, _ what’s going on? Should I be worried about my safety? Your  _ kids’ _ safety?”

“Just don’t let anyone know they’re here, okay?” Dora said. “My boss isn’t above using unethical means to get what he wants.”

“I mean, I could’ve told you that,” Dawn said, crossing her arms.

Dora tried to swallow the lump of dread and anxiety that was filling her throat. The fighting involving her symbiote (be that between them or versus others) had been enough to briefly distract her from her harsh reality. Moving houses wasn’t enough to keep her kids safe; they were still in San Francisco, which Drake had wrapped around his finger. To make things worse, she had just visited Dawn’s for the second time that night.

_ Oh, God, if Drake doesn’t already know they’re here, then— _

**Even if he did know,** the symbiote said, interrupting her thoughts,  **he would never kill them right away. He’d take them hostage, use them as bargaining chips.**

“How reassuring,” Dora said.

**I’ll kill anyone who touches them, Dora,** it said.  **Is that reassuring enough?**

“It’s better,” Dora said, a small smile tugging at her lips.

“What’s better?”

Dora’s attention was brought back to Dawn. “Oh, um, nothing. Never mind.”

“Dora,” Dawn said, uncrossing her arms and stepping closer, “I won’t push, but whatever’s going on, you can tell me. I mean, you  _ should _ tell me, but I know you won’t, so…”

“Yep,” Dora said, nodding stiffly. 

And after a moment of awkward silence between them, she moved toward the door. Neither said anything as Dora stepped out, closing it softly behind her.

**No kids,** the symbiote said.

“Yeah, well,” Dora said, “they need their sleep. I can see them when this all blows over.” Her words were hopeful, but there was hardly a small part of her that believed them at this point. “At least I know they’re safe,” she added, that sentiment being genuine (but also hinted with worry).

The symbiote paused before simply saying,  **Yes.** Then it asked,  **Are you sure Dawn is a good caretaker?**

“No,” Dora said, sighing. “But she’s the best option right now.”

The symbiote encased her.  **“I hope you’re aware that when I say I’ll kill** **_anyone_ ** **who touches them,”** it said,  **“that ‘anyone’ includes Dawn.”**

“Please don’t kill Dawn,” Dora said, more exasperated than anything.

**“I won’t,”** it said. **“Unless she hurts them.”**

It extended a tendril, which propelled them onto the top of a neighboring building. It stood there in silence for a moment, its emotions unreadable. There was frustration to be found in the fact that Dora couldn’t read its thoughts in that moment, despite the fact that it seemed very in-tuned with hers.

**“Dora,”** it finally said,  **“before you help me retrieve the rocket, we should go swimming.”**

“What?” Dora said.

**“We should go swimming,** ” it repeated.  **“In the bay, below the bridge.”**

“Haven’t you already been?” Dora asked, thinking back to the night’s beginning, when she had run from Drake’s men and plunged into the waters below the foundation.

**“That doesn’t count,”** it said.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Dora said, rolling her eyes (which felt weird, what with her being underneath layers of symbiote goop).

**“Come on, Dora,”** it said, already on the move.  **“You’ll have fun.”**

“It doesn’t seem like I have much choice in the matter,” Dora said.

**“Are you against it?”** it asked.

Truthfully? “Not really,” she said.

Even more truthfully? A small part of her thought it could be fun, and that feeling only grew as it was infected with the symbiote’s own expectations, the realization of which made Dora break out into a full grin.

“Oh my God, you’re excited about this,” she said.

**“It’s…a new experience,”** the symbiote said like it was trying to come up with an excuse.  **“It’s important to learn what I can from this planet.”**

“If you want to see new things, we should go to Pier 39,” Dora said.

**“Pier 39?”** it said.  **“What’s special about that?”**

“Okay, it’s not super interesting,” Dora admitted.

**“Then why bother?”** it said.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Dora said. “Admittedly it’s not  _ the _ most interesting attraction, but it’s something new for you. And it could also involve swimming.”

It paused its house-hopping to consider.  **“Fine,”** it said.  **“Which way?”**

Dora thought of the route, and the symbiote resumed its course. It was impressive, really, how fast it could go. Its running speeds didn’t seem to be anything except somewhat above average, but with the assistance of its strength and its malleable form it was able to travel faster than most cars on the roads.

Upon arriving at the pier, the symbiote landed in front of the crab sculpture that greeted visitors. Its thorax was covered in various greens, its claws and legs remaining exposed, the metal of them visibly worn.

**“Is this it?”** the symbiote asked, plucking a golden flower from the crab’s body.

“No,” Dora said. “But it is cool, right?”

**“Not especially,”** it said, still looking at the flower. It twirled the plant between its fingertips and said,  **“Do you know the name of this one?”** it asked.

“The flower? No,” Dora said. “I’m not a botanist.”

**“Evidently,”** it said.  **“Now what’s the ‘main attraction’?”**

“Can’t you read my mind and find out?” Dora asked.

**“I could,”** it said.  **“But I…”** It receded, letting Dora stand and admire the flower in her hand.  **I assumed a surprise would be more fun.**

“I think you’re probably right,” Dora said, looking at the flower’s bright petals. She ended up tucking it into her pant pocket. Maybe her next hobby would involve botany.

Dora looked back up at the sculpture. “You know, I don’t think I ever noticed before, but its body is shaped like a heart.”

**What? No it’s not.**

“It is,” Dora said. “Look.” She traced over its heart-shaped thorax with her finger.

The symbiote appeared on her shoulder, opal eyes squinting to inspect it further.

**“I still don’t see it,”** it concluded.

“You have a lot to learn, I guess,” Dora said, moving to walk down the pier.

**“I don’t think there’s anything to learn from that, Dora,”** it said, once again retreating beneath her skin.

“There’s something to learn from everything,” Dora said.

**Don’t reuse lines you’ve told your children,** it said.  **It’s lazy.**

“I thought maybe it would resonate with you,” she admitted.

**Seems you have a lot to learn yourself, Dora.**

“I thought we were bonding,” Dora said. “Are you back to insulting me?”

**I’m not insulting you,** it said.  **I’m merely critiquing.**

She snorted, and a wave of something like satisfaction rolled off the symbiote.

**Is the main attraction soon, Dora?** it asked, voice tinged with a curiosity that Dora hadn’t heard from it before.

“Just a little ways,” she said. “You know, you should see this place when it’s actually open. Lots of people, lots of places to shop and eat. Oh, like this place,” she said, pointing at the Boudin Bakery & Cafe. “They really have great pastries here.”

**We should get some.**

“When it’s open,” Dora said, trying her best not to also think about the fact she needed a wallet, too.

**It will be fine, Dora,** it said.  **You were hardly carrying anything in there anyway.**

“Nothing except my credit card and driver’s license,” she sighed.

It was silent for a moment.

**Dora,** it finally said.

“What?”

**Look.**

It turned her head.

**Chocolate Heaven.**

Dora snorted again. “Are you always this hungry?” she asked.

**Usually,** it said.  **That’s why I fed on the others.**

“We were giving you nutrition,” Dora said, somewhat accusative. “But you killed them. Was it because you… Did you  _ want _ to kill them?”

**Not especially,** the symbiote said.  **I didn’t care about them. But I would have preferred to maintain a host for longer than I was able to.**

“But they weren’t the right biological matches,” Dora concluded.

**No, Dora,** it said.  **Biology has nothing to do with it. They all lacked something else. The something you have.**

“Something like an essential vitamin?” she said. “A chemical?”

**Something like that, yes,** it said.  **It gave me the strength I needed to escape.**

“Are you sure it’s a chemical?” Dora said. “Was I just in better health than your other hosts? There’s a strong possibility that was a factor.”

**Almost definitely,** it said.

“Has that really been the missing link?” she said, stopping in her tracks. “Is it really that simple?”

**Did you really forget what I just said?** It materialized from her shoulder, swerving its head to get up in her face. **“There’s another component, too, Dora. Even I don’t know what it is.”**

Dora stared for a long moment, focusing on the reflections of moonlight on the symbiote’s milky eyes.

“That’s…” she finally said, and paused to knit her eyebrows together and consider her wording. “Thank you,” she ended up saying.

It eyes widened for just a second, and then with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin it said,  **“You’re welcome, Dora.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter i expose myself as a hopeless romantic who loves soft tropes


	5. Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a night void of normalcy, taking a trip to the pier didn't sound so strange.
> 
> But this reprieve is, of course, cut short.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17XywKaSbcAVt6iJwNtk-UcEIv4Q2qW7)

**“I can hear something, Dora,”** the symbiote said as they continued walking. It craned its pseudo-neck in the direction of the noise.

Dora lightly pushed its head back down. “Didn’t you say you wanted this to be a surprise?”

The symbiote craned its neck again. Dora rolled her eyes but decided to let it look. It didn’t matter anyway, right? There was no reason to be hung up on whether or not the symbiote enjoyed the pier.

It had been a long time since Dora had been here — three years, to be exact. Theo had been five, the age where he was still amazed by everything, and Abbey had been twelve, the age where she had started to be cynical of any sort of family activities.

Dora found her mind wandering to the idea of taking them here again, and then the possibility that she wouldn’t get the chance again—

**“Dora,”** it said, pulling her out of her thoughts.

“Hm?” she said.

**“Is this the main attraction?”**

She realized that yes, it was, and that they must of reached it while she was lost in thought.

She leaned her arms onto the railing in front of them, overlooking the repurposed dock area. In the darkness she could still see the outlines of sea lions lounging on their floats.

“Yes,” she said, smiling despite herself.

**“They’re so ugly,”** the symbiote said, but there wasn’t any real sting behind the comment.

“There were more of them last time I came here,” Dora said, ignoring its judgements. “A lot of adults sunbathing, a lot of pups swimming.

**“They smell disgusting,”** it said.

“That a pretty fair criticism,” Dora said, chuckling.

**“Tell me more about them, Dora,”** it said.

“Don’t you already know?” she said. “I don’t think my sea lion trivia is difficult for you to access.”

**“It’s surprisingly secure,”** it said, obviously lying.  **“You’re going to have to inform me verbally.”**

“Okay,” Dora said, excitement seeping into her voice. “Well, these are one of six living species of sea lion, the California sea lion.” 

**“Creatively named.”**

“They’re best known for being smart and talkative,” Dora continued, ignoring the symbiote’s interjection. “These guys hang around here because there’s good sun and food, and they’re away from natural predators. Oh, and you know what?” she said, gesticulating wildly in her enthusiasm. “The Atlantic Ocean is a perfectly suitable habitat considering temperatures and food sources, but sea lions refuse to live there, and no one is sure why.”

**“How do you know so much about these creatures, Dora?”** it said, leaning its gooey head over the rail to get a slightly closer look.  **“Your research at the Life Foundation had nothing to do with sea lions.”**

Dora paused, considering the question. “I wanted to be a marine biologist,” she said, watching a particularly large sea lion roll to lean its weight on one side. “The interest stuck with me, even if the career choice didn’t.”

She huffed a laugh as one of the sea lions flopped onto another one’s back. It barked angrily, prompting those around it to speak up, but ultimately it let the other one lounge on its back fat. Another emerged from the water and shuffled into whatever space was left, plopping it wet head onto the wooden float.

Turning her gaze from the animals, she was greeted with the sight of the symbiote staring at her.

For maybe the first time, Dora took a good look at its face. Its teeth were blunter and wider than the rabbit’s had been, and at first glance it seem like it had less, but then closer inspection seemed to reveal it had at least three rows.

And its eyes were always a point of interest. One might describe them as insectoid, but they were hardly compound eyes. Unlike the eyes of most other creatures she’d seen, the symbiote didn’t appear to have pupils, either.

Dora extended a hand toward the symbiote. It flinched, and Dora began to withdraw her hand. Its bright eyes widened and after a moment of hesitation it leaned into Dora’s touch. She gulped, brushing a thumb under its eye.

“You’re going to have to tell me about your eyes,” Dora said. “They’re fascinating.”

It paused, a strange feeling coming from it.

“I can tell you about human eyes,” Dora offered. “But I guess you could find out all you needed to know without even talking to me.”

**“No,”** it said quickly.  **“You should tell me.”**

“Okay,” Dora said. “Sure, yeah. An exchange of information.”

She realized her hand was still on its cheek and took it away.

**“Would you like to swim, Dora?”** it asked, tilting its head toward the waters.

Dora blinked. “Yeah,” she said, surprisingly genuine. “But we can’t bother the sea lions,” she added.

**“That’s bullshit,”** it said.

“It’s polite,” she said.

The symbiote sighed. **“Fine,”** it huffed. It extended a tendril that pulled Dora up and onto one of the docked boats.  **“At least do a good jump.”**

“I’ve never taken a diving class,” Dora said. “I don’t know what you’re expecting.”

**“I’ll help,”** it said.

“I think a cannonball will do,” Dora said, moving back a few steps before running and launching herself over the side of the boat. She tucked her legs to her chest and hit the water with a splash that woke some sea lions into a barking frenzy.

**I thought you said not to bother them,** the symbiote said, voice laced with amusement.

“I didn’t mean to,” Dora said, trying to quietly swim farther away from the animals’ resting place. “God, it’s cold,” she mumbled.

**I’ll help,** the symbiote said.

Its form washed over her, bringing with it sudden warmth. She had never noticed how warm it was.

“Thank you,” she said.

**“Of course,”** it said, its grin overlapping Dora’s half smile.

Then with that same grin it submerged them underwater, where Dora was surprised to find she could breath.

**“I can process breathable gases for you,”** it explained.  **“Previously unbreathable environments will be safe for you.”** It paused.  **“For us.”**

“Wow,” Dora breathed. “You must have to make alterations to the body for this to work. Mostly in the lungs, I would assume?”

**“It mostly has to do with me being over you,”** it said.  **“My skin, like gills, derives oxygen from the water and feeds it to you.”**

“Wow,” Dora said again. “You’re… You’re incredible.”

Warmth pooled in her chest. The symbiote was silent for a moment, but then came a  **“Thank you.”** It was spoken with some uncertainty, but was obviously genuine nonetheless.

“You’re welcome,” Dora said, a little uncertain herself.

Then, grinning wider again, the symbiote shot up and out of the water, spinning like an umbrella before diving back in. Any fish it neared swam away in fearful hurry, and the symbiote turned to watch in fascination as each one did. It approached more, which predictably scattered, but one was caught in the symbiote’s tendril before it escaped. It reeled the fish toward it and brought it to its face. The fish struggled, but the symbiote’s grip was too strong to escape.

“Please don’t eat it,” Dora said.

**“I wasn’t planning on it,”** the symbiote said, cocking its head at the fish. It brought a clawed finger to the fish’s fins, paused, and then retracted its claw before touching it. The fish wriggled in panic, and the symbiote sighed and let it go. Then it swam further, finding interest in a yellow-brown shark. Dora could feel it considering grabbing this one, but it seemed to decide against it, opting to follow behind it instead.

**“Dora, tell me about this one,”** the symbiote said, tilting its head at it.

“That’s the…” She paused. “I can’t remember its name.”

**“Swell shark,”** the symbiote said.  **“Tell me about it, Dora.”**

“Again, I feel like you already know a lot.”

**“Just the name,”** it lied.  **“I don’t know more than that.”**

“Okay,” Dora said, charmed enough to keep playing along. “Well, unlike other fish, sharks have eyelids. Specifically they have nictitating membranes, which cover their eyes to protect from damage.

“Swell sharks are particularly interesting,” Dora continued, “because of their defense mechanism against predators. When threatened, they suck in a lot of water and swell up to look more intimidating.”

**“So it’s another creative name,”** the symbiote said, and followed the shark to the small crevice of a rock where the swell shark decided to situate itself.

**“I’m surprised it’s not threatened by me,”** the symbiote said, again cocking its head at the fish.

“Me too,” Dora admitted.

The symbiote stared at it for a few more moments, then said,  **“Dora.”**

“Yes?”

**“There are more of these on this planet.”** It was more a statement than a question, but the symbiote seemed to be looking for an answer.

“Yes,” Dora said.

It hummed thoughtfully, then extended its leg to lightly kick off the rock and swim deeper into the bay. Its movements were slower than before, allowing it to watch closely as fish passed them by, and sometimes just admire the way the water refracted the moonlight.

The symbiote didn’t project all its thoughts to Dora in the way she projected hers to it, but she could easily feel its awe as it watched the silvery light of the moon become scrambled by the water’s waves. It stayed in the spot, staring up at the light with wide eyes.

Then came the familiar sound of,  **“Dora.”**

Dora jumped at the sudden break of silence. (Or at least, she felt like she jumped. Maybe she couldn’t from within the symbiote’s casing.)

“Yeah?” she said.

**“It’s peaceful down here,”** it said.

“It is,” Dora agreed.

**“You’ve never been down here before, Dora,”** it said.

“I’ve never been able to breath underwater before,” she said.

The symbiote opened its mouth to say something, but it was cut off by a sudden grip around its waist, pulling the both of them up and out of the water at a speed that would have normally burst Dora’s lungs. They were dropped indelicately on the boardwalk, the sound of which roused a good number of sea lions into loud barks.

“Dora,” a familiar voice said, and the symbiote jumped up as if on instinct, grabbing the voice’s owner by the neck.

The symbiote was staring down the face of Carlton Drake, who seemed oddly smug for someone with a giant, clawed hand wrapped around his throat. The symbiote’s usual smile and wide eyes had disappeared, being replaced with a squinty, teeth-baring scowl.

**“Carlton Drake,”** it snarled.

“Symbiote A02,” Drake said, voice strangely clear for someone in the process of being choked. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Drake’s hand moved to the symbiote’s wrist, and it began to huff a laugh, but was cut off as Drake’s hand grew large enough to wrap around its arm. The hand, silvery-gray and lined with sickening red veins, ripped the symbiote’s fingers off Drake’s neck. Then the silvery mass encasing Drake’s arm retreated back inside, and he tilted his head innocently.

“I was thinking we could talk, Dr. Skirth,” Drake said, voice laced with a decidedly un-innocent anger. “Would you come out?”

**“She will** **_not_ ** **,”** the symbiote growled, something in its mass shifting. Dora, feeling a familiar fear begin to overwhelm her, didn’t protest.

“I think she will,” Drake said. “Your  _ leader _ is requesting it.”

The symbiote hesitated, then receded, leaving Dora face-to-face with Carlton Drake.

“Dr. Skirth,” he said, taking a step forward. Dora struggled not to recoil, the symbiote wordlessly urging her to stand her ground.

“Mr. Drake,” she said, trying to muster a smile. What resulted was a grimace.

“Listen, Dora, I realize I’ve been a little…” Drake chuckled softly. “… _ Aggressive _ in my methods, to say the least. But things have changed.  _ I’ve _ changed.”

Dora stared at him. “What did you mean by ‘leader’?” she asked.

“Always observant,” Drake said. “That’s what made you our best.”

**Your missing specimen,** her symbiote said.  **Drake has bonded with it. It’s the leader of our mission to Earth.**

“Where did you find it?” Dora asked.

Drake scoffed. “I didn’t find it,” he said. “It found me.” He paused for effect (Dora could feel her symbiote mentally rolling its eyes), then continued. “It’s been hopping from host to host, trying to find the perfect match, and it was able to find me. Our symbiosis has proven to me that human and symbiote together is the key to evolution.”

**That’s not true,** her symbiote said.  **There is no ‘perfect biological match.’ One of them is lying, Dora.**

“You must understand that now,” Drake continued. “And that symbiote you’ve bonded with, it’s an important part of a team, a team that can bring more symbiotes to Earth.”

“Is that true?” Dora said.

“Of course,” Drake said.

There was a pause.

**Yes,** the symbiote said.

“So what is it you want me to do?” Dora said,

“You’re both part of a team,” Drake said. “We’re all responsible for bringing back the other symbiotes.”

“That’s crazy,” Dora said.

**“That’s an order.”** Drake’s mouth moved in time with the words, but it obviously wasn’t him speaking.

Dora felt the symbiote’s mass emerge under her clothes, covering her chest and abdomen. Then its head formed from her arm and said  **“Of course.”**

Drake smiled. “Great.” He paused, tilting his head as if listening. “And you did take Symbiote A03, didn’t you.”

**“Yes,”** her symbiote said.  **“It proved to be…uncooperative.”**

“Uncooperative?” Drake said.

“It…ran away,” Dora said.

“How unfortunate,” Drake said.

**“We can find it,”** the symbiote said.

Expression altogether left his face for a moment, then returned as quickly as it had gone. “Then go,” he said. “Bring it back to the Life Foundation, and together we’ll be able to bring back even more of your kind.”

The symbiote fully encased Dora.  **“Understood,”** it said, shooting a tendril that brought it to the roof of the Magnetron gift shop, then jumping from roof to boardwalk to roof until it was back on the streets, not bothering to look back.

It didn’t stop moving until it was miles away, all the way at Mussel Rock Park, where it tore across the landscape and onto Mussel Rock itself. From there it paused to stare out at the ocean before withdrawing back inside her.

Dora wanted to say something, but she couldn’t seem to find the words. She instead lowered down to wrap her arms around her legs and rest her head on her knees.

“Shit,” was all she could muster.

Dread twisted in her stomach, tight and suffocating, threatening to spill out in tears.

**Dora…**

Fear turned to anger, boiling and hot, which was much more easily articulated.

“You!” she said, standing up and pointing a finger in the air. “Your reason for getting a rocket was coming back here with more of your kind? As what, a cliché invasion force?”

It was silent.

“Saving me was a trick? Saving my kids?” She choked on those words. “God, my kids,” she said, putting her head in her hands. “Drake was able to find us so easily at the dock, what about them?” And even if  _ he _ didn’t, what about more symbiotes, ready to eat them from the inside or otherwise?

**No!** the symbiote shouted from inside her skull. Dora stumbled from the shocking force of it, but the symbiote extended a tendril from her back that righted her. She almost thanked it, but just as quickly as the habitual phrase was in her thoughts it was swallowed down.

**They won’t be…** It trailed off, at a loss for words. Emotions were radiating off of her, off of it, jumbled and nonsensical. The feelings reminded her of the ones that had festered in her stomach when she was in that debate with herself of whether or not to get help, and who in the world she would get help from.

“They won’t be what?” Dora said, the lump in her throat making her words thick.

There couldn’t be any good endings to that sentence. Of course there weren’t. Dora was dealing with a man-eating, parasitic alien lifeform, one that, along with the few other representatives of its species, had shown no remorse for the death it caused. It was absurd to expect anything less from such a creature than betrayal.

Betrayal? Could that be right? It  _ felt _ like betrayal, but that would mean Dora had been stupid enough to put trust into the symbiote.

Which she had.

“I’m so stupid,” she said, tears freely flowing now. “I wanted to stop this, but I can’t, and now you’re going to go and bring back more killers.”

**No,** it said again.

“Is that the only word you know?” Dora said, huffing a humorless laugh.

**No, I…** It trailed off again.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Dora said. “I get it.”

**You don’t.**

“Don’t I?”

**I don’t,** it said desperately.  **We don’t.**

“What are you talking about?”

**My species thrives off the consumption of hosts,** it said.  **I was on a scouting mission with the others, looking for a planet with life. Once a planet is found, it’s expected the team bring back the rest of our species.**

“So that’s what you’re going to do,” Dora said.

**I…** It trailed off again.

“You what?” Dora said.

**I don’t understand it, Dora,** it said.

_ “What?” _ Dora said, anger bubbling to the surface once again.

Its head reared from her shoulder to look her in the eyes. Its smile was gone when it said,  **“I don’t understand** **_us_ ** **, Dora.”**

Dora knitted her eyebrows, confusion overcoming anger as she repeated, “What?”

**“I…”** It paused.  **“I would prefer that you not die.”**

Human standards would dictate such a confession to be all but meaningless. Really, it was the most base affection for a person to just not want them to die. Not even affection, really, just…decency. Non-hatred.

But Dora got the sense it was more than that from a symbiote.

**“I would also prefer the sea lions not die,”** it continued.  **“And maybe not your children.”**

Dora stared at it for a long moment, not knowing whether to cry or laugh or yell. She decided on a question. “What does that mean for you?” she asked.

**“I don’t know,”** it admitted.  **“That’s a question I have been considering. But it seems my time to think it over has been…halted.”**

“Because of your leader,” Dora said.

**“Yes,”** her symbiote said.  **“It was lost in the crash. I had hoped it was dead.”**

Dora took a breath. “Maybe,” she said, “we can fix that.”

The symbiote’s eyes widened, and then that familiar wide grin stretched over its face.


	6. Amalgam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the impending threat of a symbiote invasion, Dora and her new friend quickly devise a plan and put it into action.
> 
> The two of them can only hope that they'll be resourceful enough to win this battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just want to thank everyone so so much for the nice comments!! they really mean the world to me

“Should we find A03?” Dora asked.

**“No,”** it said, shooting past a pair of fish.  **“It can hardly do as much harm as the leader.”**

“Or millions of other symbiotes,” Dora said.

**“Correct.”**

It blasted out and up from the water, extending its claws to dig into the wall of rock on the edge of the Life Foundation. From there it scurried up and to the window it had previously had them jump out of.

Shrinking its claws only slightly, it shredded the sheet acting as a makeshift cover. With their door open, it entered the building with delicate steps.

There were two guards, whose backs had previously been turned, but who were now staring directly at Dora’s symbiote. Their hands clutched their guns, shaking, but still pointed at the immediate threat.

**“Gentlemen,”** her symbiote said, receding to reveal Dora. “I’m an employee here,” Dora finished, flashing them one of her previously swiped ID cards.

The men didn’t waiver from their positions, but looked decidedly less threatened now that Dora had revealed herself.

“Could I get through, please?” Dora said.

Both men cocked their weapons. The moment the sound of it reached Dora’s ears, her symbiote extended out from her arms and wrapped itself around their throats. Before their fingers could even graze the triggers, both were passed out on the floor.

**Take one of their weapons,** her symbiote said.

“I don’t think we need it,” Dora said.

**I want to study it on our way,** it said.

Dora shrugged, which was the symbiote’s cue to grab one gun and bring it to Dora’s hand. She slouched a bit from the weight of such a large weapon, but the symbiote quickly adjusted to make it feel light in her hand.

“Where would Drake be?” Dora said, hoisting the weapon over her shoulder like she had seen in action movies. Then she decided that felt awkward and let it hang by her side.

**The leader would want to get the rocket as quickly as possible,** it said.  **This team doesn’t matter to it more than the success of its mission.**

Dora knew where that meant he was, but it would be their last stop. For now she navigated sparse halls, devoid of the scientists she presumed were at mission control with Drake.

Oddly enough, she only came across guards once she reached the lab doors. There were two guarding the outside, both of which drew their weapons on Dora immediately (which was honestly pretty fair, considering she was holding a much larger edition of theirs).

“Are you done with this?” Dora asked under her breath.

**Yes,** it said.

“Great,” she said, chucking the gun at the first guard. Its non-business end (whatever that was called) hit him square in the jaw. The force of Dora’s symbiote-assisted throw knocked him back, head clanging against the door and his body falling to the floor.

The other guard fired, bullet grazing Dora’s shoulder. Despite her vast knowledge of biology, she didn’t expect it to hurt so much. She stumbled back and grimaced, hand instinctively moving to clutch at the wound. The symbiote moved her to dodge the next shot, then fully encased Dora and grabbed the man by the neck, tossing him to the other side of the room and out the window.

It retreated back inside her as soon as he smashed through the glass, but it still kept a thin layer of its mass around Dora’s torso and hand, the latter extending to pry open the lab doors.

“Okay,” Dora said, taking a breath. “Container. Speaker.”

**Matches and oil would also be useful,** her symbiote snarled.

“Let’s not go crazy,” Dora said. “Realistically we’ll only be able to separate it from Drake long enough to contain it.”

**I know,** it said, edge not leaving its voice.

Dora grabbed the container previously used for A03, pausing as she held it in her hands.

“You’re really doing this?” she asked.

It was silent for just a moment.  **Yes,** it said.  **I don’t think there’s any turning back now.**

“There could be,” Dora said.

**Are you trying to convince me?** it said.  **If I turned on you, you and the rest of your species would die.**

“I know,” she said. “I just— If we don’t succeed, you won’t…” She trailed off.

**Neither will you,** it said.

“This is my best chance at survival,” Dora said. “What about you?”

**It would be safer and simpler for me to either get on the rocket or stay here and await the invasion,** it said.  **But this planet is interesting.**

Dora snorted. “That’s your reason for staying?”

**Not entirely,** it admitted.  **Your children were also a factor.**

“My kids?” Dora said. “Did my maternal instincts rub off on you?”

**I wouldn’t say so,** it said. **Your children are aggravating, time-consuming, and exhausting.** **But you care for them. It’s fascinating.**

Dora looked down at her reflection in the polished glass container, knowing the symbiote was looking too.

“Huh,” she said, letting a smile creep onto her lips.

A small tendril slipped out from under her sleeves, trailing over Dora’s fingers before latching onto the container.

**I’ll hold this,** her symbiote said.  **You grab a speaker.**

Dora moved to enter the testing chamber, searching for a portable speaker. She knew this room had one for the purpose of testing sounds in other areas, and it had the ability to play high-frequency sounds that could harm the leader symbiote enough to kill it or force it detach itself from Drake.

Before Dora could spot anything useful and portable, white lights flashed as a distant crash was heard, followed by screams and glass breaking.

“Shit,” Dora said, scanning the room even quicker now, hoping her eyes would catch on the item she was looking for.

**No time,** the symbiote said, taking control of her legs and moving her out of the room.

Dora gulped. “Right,” she said, control being given back to her as she sprinted out of the laboratory at speeds that reminded her of her first escape.

Instead of running all the way to the already broken window, she leapt toward the closest one, which was shattered by her momentum. From there the symbiote encased her, its claws digging into the rock and dirt, crawling along the almost untouched areas of land and toward the rocket launch site.

Coming up upon the site, they saw the leader on the walkway. At the sight of it, her symbiote encased her, placing the container inside its stomach (which only disgusted Dora for a second before her mind shifted to more important matters). It didn’t come as any surprise that the leader was here. But what did come as a shock was the dark figure of another symbiote.

“That’s Eddie,” Dora said.

The symbiotes exchanged a few words.

**“Is it going to—?”** her symbiote said.

The leader’s arm extended, its hand morphing into a sphere, which dropped to the floor before spikes suddenly protruded from it.

**“Ah,”** her symbiote said, seeming somewhat relieved.

The leader swung at Eddie (and his ride-along), who narrowly avoided the blow. That seemed as opportune a time as any for Dora and her symbiote to join in, swinging closer with one arm and extending the other to wrap around the leader’s neck. They pulled in an attempt to get the leader prone on its back, but they weren’t quick enough; the leader grabbed the tendril and tugged, sending them crashing down on Eddie. They got up quickly, pulling Eddie up with them. The leader blinked at them for a moment, then squinted its eyes and snarled, **“You.”**

**“You,”** Dora and her symbiote returned with equal disdain.

**“That’s** **_Riot_ ** **now,”** it said, arms stretching into sharp points.

It moved with surprising elegance considering its new name, lunging forward with expert skill, its weapons still grazing them when they dodged. Her symbiote healed them quickly, so fast that the pain hardly registered to either of them.

Eddie and his symbiote roared and bounded toward Riot, then grabbed its arms and held them back.

**“And we’re your poison,”** he and his symbiote said.  **“We’re** **_Venom.”_ **

Venom punctuated their title by slamming their head into Riot’s. The action hardly phased it. It responded by simply retracting its daggers, and with sheer strength alone it moved to wrap its hands around Venom’s throat. At that, Dora and her symbiote returned the gesture by shooting two tendril to wrap around its throat. Riot, seemingly surprised, stumbled backwards, freeing Venom from its grasp.

**“You b—”** it started, cut off by another tendril extending from their stomach and shoving into its mouth, coming out with the prize of Riot’s tongue. They threw it into the ocean contemptuously, not breaking eye contact.

Riot roared and started toward Dora and her symbiote, claws raking at their chest. It bit and tore at the symbiote covering Dora, viciously attempting to tear it off.

But from behind Riot came Venom, who locked it in a chokehold, pulling it back from Dora. Riot pushed back on Venom, banging them onto the rails, but Venom didn’t let go. They continued to hold Riot’s neck between their bicep and their extensor carpi radialis longus. Dora and her symbiote pitched in by wrapping their arms around its, keeping it from clawing at Venom. Riot thrashed against their combined grips, then in an instant stopped.

They knew something was wrong the moment it stopped fighting. But in their split second of considering their options, they felt the pain of sharp spikes impaling their stomach. They reeled back, falling to the ground and taking the spikes with them. They looked up to see Venom had fallen limply against the rail for a moment. They clutched their stomach, her symbiote working to repair it as fast as possible.

Riot grinned down at them. Its clawed hand grabbed them by the neck, raising them up to their feet.

**“You’re a** **_fool,”_ ** it said.  **“Look around you. You know what a disgrace you’ll be to your species if you go through with this.”** Its grip tightened.  **“Are you really going to throw your life away for one measly host?”**

Her symbiote narrowed its eyes.  **“Maybe I am a fool,”** it said.  **“But I’m also resourceful.”**

They extended their arm, fingers not quite reaching Riot. Then their hand began to change, lengthening and tapering at one end, morphing into something like a blunt sword. The end knocked at Riot’s chest, and they couldn’t contain their grin.

Riot’s eyes narrowed in confusion, then widened as it understood. From the tip of their arm shot one of its own spikes, shooting through its chest and out the other side. It shrieked and let go of their neck, clutching at the wound in agony.

**“We’re gonna take all the shit you threw at us and give it right back,”** they said.  **“So why not call us** **_Ricochet?”_ **

Riot roared, and Ricochet responded by shooting one of its spike into its mouth. In the moment it took Riot to register the damage, Venom was already tackling it. The two (or maybe more accurately, four) crashed to the ground, Venom sinking their teeth into Riot’s shoulder, tearing off a piece of the symbiote and spitting it out. Riot moved to scratch at Venom’s back, but Ricochet shot a spike through its hand before it had the chance. Then they leapt into the air and to the other side of Riot, where they sunk their nails into its mass.

**“That’s new,”** Venom said, nodding at Ricochet’s arm.

**“We’ve been studying,”** Ricochet said. Dora’s symbiote produced the container from their stomach.  **“Just focus on detaching his symbiote** .”

**“What do you think we’re doing?”** Venom said, again biting into Riot.

**“Sound,”** Dora said, the sound oddly enough coming from their mouth.  **“We need—”**

She choked on the rest of her sentence — or rather, Riot choked it out of her.

**“That’s not the only thing that can separate you,”** Riot said, other hand clamping onto Venom’s neck. It kicked the container out of Ricochet’s hand and into the waters below..  **“And you were supposed to be the smart one,”** it sneered.

All it took was one motion, one roar, one flexing of its disgusting muscles for Riot to tear the symbiotes away from their hosts’ faces. Dora had thought that being shot or punched or stabbed was painful, but this was something else. This was  _ agony. _ This was them being torn apart, undone. Dora’s mouth was open in a silent scream. She heard Eddie yell something, but she couldn’t process what.

She could feel her symbiote detaching from her the more Riot pulled, a sensation she assumed wasn’t dissimilar to her veins being pulled out.

She was frozen from the pain, helpless as she watched and felt and experienced Ricochet being ripped in two.

She was frozen until she found herself tuning in to her symbiote’s thoughts.

Disgust and anger and confusion, but most of all an intense fear that mirrored Dora’s own. Such terror should have been infectious. It usually was. But in this case, it was all it took for Dora to spring into action. She reached out and grabbed whatever strands of her symbiote she could get her hands on, and then she pulled. Her arms strained, and she was sure something popped or tore, but she seemed to have the element of surprise on her side because her symbiote somehow slipped through Riot’s grip.

She stumbled back a few paces, falling onto her back, but never letting go of her symbiote. Through their stumbles, it snaked up her arm and surrounded her once again.

In the meantime, Eddie had been thrown in the opposite direction, and Riot was holding his symbiote in the air and bringing it menacingly toward his mouth.

For a moment Eddie stared at its writhing, pitiful mass, before he surged forward and took it by the hand. It immediately encased him, and the combined forces of Venom and Ricochet slammed into Riot.

The three of them continued to exchange blows, alternating between Riot being slammed against a structure and Ricochet or Venom being torn into by its menacing claws. As they continued to claw and punch and kick, the symbiotes of all three seemed to hang off them like the peeling skin of a sunburn (except thicker and goopier and much more important). It came to a point where Eddie and Dora were fighting with Drake while the symbiotes just surrounded them, like a trio of large shadows, tearing at each other with unrestrained fervor. Dora found herself painfully aware of each blow, each move, even when it wasn’t her eyes watching, her form being hit. So of course she knew exactly when Riot was closing in, and of course she felt it encase all three of them in one massive amalgamation.

It was entirely different from when Dora’s symbiote surrounded her. When it was her symbiote, there was still a sense of communication, even when she wasn’t in control. Consumed by this other one, she was looking on in a dreamlike state as the creature climbed up the side of the rocket. She wanted to scream, punch, reach out, do anything that might stop this, but she was powerless in that moment. She could barely feel the presence of her own symbiote, the two of them being too mangled together with the four others to discern themselves.

It was hopeless. They were going to die here, and if not here then up there in space, and if not in space back on Earth when all the other symbiotes had arrived to feed. There was nothing Dora could do now except lose herself in the empty pain surrounding her.


	7. Thank You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It feels like the end.
> 
> But hope comes from an unseen force.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17XywKaSbcAVt6iJwNtk-UcEIv4Q2qW7)

Dora was learning about pains she had never known before.

She learned the pain of being shot (which was pretty bad), the pain of being forcibly separated from a symbiote (which was indescribably agonizing), and now the strangely empty hurt of being absorbed into Riot. She assumed that would be the last pain she ever felt.

Until she felt a more familiar one, the kind she and her symbiote had initially planned on bringing to the fight.

Through the speakers above them came an excruciatingly high-pitched sound, one that pierced Dora’s eardrums and was apparently exactly what she needed to get her vocal chords working again. She screamed, and so did her symbiote and Eddie and Drake and the others, becoming a cacophonous chorus of anguish.

It was like her brain was being clamped down on, beaten; her head was throbbing; she swore that another minute of yelling would tear her throat apart. But through that she clung to one thought, which was to separate. She reached out a hand into inky darkness, and through it her symbiote reached for her, and the two of them tore their way out of Riot and back to Ricochet. In a moment Venom did the same. Then Ricochet bared their teeth against the pain and grabbed Riot by the heel, pulling it down the side of the rocket. Venom followed suit, digging their claws into Riot’s calf and tugging.

Before they could continue, Dora’s symbiote was ripped from her, and Drake’s and Eddie’s were similarly torn from them, and all six entities cascaded down the side of the rocket. From the height they were at, none of them were harmed, but Dora saw three goopy masses flop off the sides of the platform.

Her first instinct was to dive in, but it took only a second for her to realize that doing so would cause her injury, and it took less time than that for Carlton Drake to lay a punch on Eddie. While he recovered, Drake stood and kneed him in the face, prompting Dora to jump up and tackle him. He fell to the ground and received a whack to the side of his face before Dora was thrown off. As she fell on her ass, she was painfully reminded of her failed workout routine (how was she supposed to find time between parenting and scientist-ing?).

Eddie tackled Drake next, and the two struggled on the ground for a minute in a fashion similar to Dora’s high school wrestling team. Before Dora could think to help him, Eddie was back on his feet and running up the sloped side of the launchpad. From there he jumped and hit Drake square in the face with a punch that sent him tumbling over the edge. He clung to the side, eyes fixed on something on the side of the platform. Then looked up at Eddie and Dora with that disgustingly self-satisfied look on his face.

“You’re too late,” he said. “This is the next stage of—”

Dora swung her leg, Drake’s nose making a satisfying _crack_ as her foot made impact on his face. He tumbled over the edge and splashed into the water below.

“I quit,” Dora said, unable to keep some of the smugness out of her voice.

“Good to see you, Skirth,” Eddie said. Dora turned around to face him and couldn’t help but smile. “Nice work,” he said, chest heaving.

“You too,” Dora said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

She moved to take another step, but stopped when she felt something sharp pierce through her back. She looked down to see a silver sword-like object puncturing a fat, vertical gash in her torso. The weapon pulled out, and without its support Dora fell to the ground and blood spilled rapidly from her open wound.

“Skirth—!” Eddie yelled, barely getting the syllable out before he was cut off by a gasp and the gooey, gory sound of him meeting her same fate.

The last thing Dora Skirth saw before she died was Eddie Brock collapsing on the ground, the cut through his stomach mirroring her own.

The last thing she heard was Riot’s mocking tone sneering, **“You are** **_nothing.”_ **

* * *

 

The symbiote previously attached to Dora Skirth was alone in the darkness of the ocean. The water was suddenly much more difficult to navigate now that the symbiote was reduced to a gooey state, but it was imperative to Dora’s survival (and its own) that it reach her.

There wasn’t an opportunity to find a temporary host. There were no fish around this area, which wouldn’t have been much help to the symbiote anyway. What it needed was a bird, but no logical creature flocked around the area of such noise and explosive content as a rocket launch site.

So what was it supposed to do? It could hardly see. Despite its current lack of lungs, it felt like it was suffocating. It had to get back to Dora.

It had little manipulation of its form. It flapped the edges of its mass, like it had seen fish do, and the movement let it advance just a bit.

Dora was up there, on some kind of launchpad. It had to have a base in the water. If the symbiote could find that and climb it, it could get back to Dora.

It moved in an approximation of an aquatic animal, in the direction where it could sense Dora. It was slow-moving, and practically blind in the darkness of the water. It considered for a brief moment that it could just let itself sink, find some bottom-dwelling fish to be its host, and forget everything else.

“Thank you,” Dora had said. It was a simple phrase, one that she used often, but…

It wanted to hear her say it again.

It resumed the flapping its pseudo-flippers, this time employing considerably more energy. It kept going and going without stopping until it clanged against a metallic surface, sending it back maybe a few inches. As soon as it regained its composure, it clung to the side and climbed upward as fast as it could, which was slower than it would’ve liked.

As it climbed it seemed to forget its surroundings, its only focus on its current objective. It had been a few minutes, maybe more, since it was separated from Dora, and in that time who knows what could’ve happened to her? It was likely Drake had also been separated from his symbiote, but he could’ve gotten back to it now. And they could have hurt Dora.

It quickened its pace as much as it could, finally making its way above water, and continuing upward. It didn’t process the structure above it before it bumped against it. Undeterred, it clung to the underside, searching for an edge or a hole or something it could use to get on top of the platform. It could feel her just above it; all it needed was an opening.

To its luck, it came across a multi-holed opening for ventilation. It was able to pour its form through and onto the top of the platform, where it could see Dora laying on the ground, dead-eyed and stained with blood.

It rushed over to her, spreading itself over her chest. It coursed through her veins, stitching together her insides, restarting her heart. For a moment it hovered over her face, placing a pseudopod on her cheek. Then it surrounded her completely.

* * *

 

Dora Skirth woke up with her symbiote enveloping her, a feeling that was more comforting than one might expect.

There were a few things to take in. First was the fact that she had died. Then that Eddie had died, and his body was still flopped lifelessly just a few feet from them. And then there was the robotic countdown reminding her that the rocket was seconds away from taking off.

And of course, her symbiote had saved her life.

“Thank you,” she said, voice scratchy. Was that a side effect of dying?

Warmth blossomed in their chest.

 **Of course, Dora,** it said.

As it did, the other symbiote squeezed through the vents, reconnecting to Eddie at his hand. When it had encased him completely, Venom jumped up into a fighting position.

 **“The rocket—”** Venom said, just as the deafening roar of the engines signaled that it was taking off.

 **“Shit,”** Venom and Ricochet said.

The rocket was already in the air, leaving a trail of flames in its wake. Venom bellowed and bounded away, leaping onto the lightning tower next to the rocket. Ricochet followed suit, both of them climbing to the top. Venom, having the head start, made it there first, and immediately they jumped toward the rocket. Their claws scraped the edge of the engines, and then their body was cascading downward and into the fiery exhaust. Ricochet extended a tendril that wrapped around Venom’s waist, pulling them back onto the tower before they could be completely engulfed.

Ricochet stared at the rapidly ascending rocket, mind whirring with what could possibly be done. Destruction of the rocket was vital, lest they have a full-scale invasion on their hands. But neither of them could jump or swing high enough to reach it at this point, nor would Ricochet’s projectiles be enough to cause significant damage to it. They’d need to make something large and hand-held, and somehow get up there and…

 **“Venom,”** Ricochet said, extending their hand. From their wrist their form swirled, and from it came an icicle-like spear. **“Once I detach this, it will last less than a minute.”**

Venom stared at them, processing the statement. **“Okay. And how do you plan to get** ** _that—”_** they looked at the spear **“—up** ** _there?”_** they said, looking up at the rocket.

Ricochet stepped back, hands extending into thick tendrils that wrapped around Venom’s abdomen. The tendrils lifted them high into the air, then reeled back behind Ricochet’s head, in a crude and highly edited imitation of baseball pitchers Dora had seen.

 **“Good luck,”** they said. With that they stabbed the spear through Venom’s shoulder, leaned back, and chucked Venom into the air and toward the rocket. Venom became an amorphous black mass in the distance, the only thing separating them from the night sky being the blue that punctured their shoulder.

As soon as Venom’s dark form could be seen making impact with the rocket, Dora’s symbiote retreated inside her and she collapsed to the ground. Her entire body screamed with exhaustion. Her heart was still racing, but her arms were like cooked spaghetti.

“I take it big spears aren’t your specialty?” Dora heaved, shakily tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

**Correct.**

She huffed a laugh, the end of which was cut off by the boom of an explosion above. She looked up to see the rocket reduced to flaming scrap metal, and through the deafening blast she could swear she heard Drake scream.

And through the flames she saw Venom falling, symbiote slowly melting off to reveal Eddie underneath.

“Shit,” Dora said, her symbiote surrounding her. Ricochet raced toward them, trying to estimate where Eddie would fall. They saw the symbiote form a flimsy parachute for him, slowing his fall just enough for Ricochet to catch him midair, breaking both of their falls on the water with their back. They dragged Eddie to rocky shore, which was miles away from the area of land that housed the Life Foundation, and there he and Dora collapsed.

“Thanks,” Eddie coughed.

Dora just nodded, words seeming like too much effort at the moment.

 **Dora,** her symbiote said.

Dora didn’t respond, but it knew she was listening.

**Thank you.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in that scene where they fall off the rocket, the movie makes it seem like their symbiotes prevent eddie and drake from breaking their goddamn spines, but i did something different because why not
> 
> (p.s. happy pride month everybody!)


	8. Fatigue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the battle, there are still things to do, and revelations to be had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this a bit early because i'm gonna be away tomorrow!
> 
> also [here’s](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.google.com/maps/place/San%2BFrancisco,%2BCA/@37.8261157,-122.4809111,28m/data%3D!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80859a6d00690021:0x4a501367f076adff!8m2!3d37.7749295!4d-122.4194155?hl%3Den&sa=D&ust=1559514490106000&usg=AFQjCNGWleCw7mOlA-sei1T2OaQTCUNkWQ) the location in case i didn't describe it well enough :0
> 
> [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17XywKaSbcAVt6iJwNtk-UcEIv4Q2qW7)

Dora dug her nails into the wet sand of the shore, sitting against the rock wall behind her. She had taken the liberty of propping Eddie up, too, which was more difficult than it might usually be considering both of them being exhausted. They were on a small beach that sat underneath a rocky hill just a few miles away from the Life Foundation. On top was where tourists used to take in the view of the Golden Gate Bridge, or maybe stop at that fort Dora couldn’t remember the name of. Not that people didn’t still do that, but it had recently become more popular to take a tour of Carlton’s Drake Mill-Valley-and-San-Francisco-based empire.

“We should clean that up,” Dora mumbled, referring to the flaming debris still crashing into the waters.

**We should rest first,** her symbiote said.

Dora nodded. “Yeah, probably.”

She glanced at Eddie. He was staring down at his hands, fiddling with the gold ring on his pointer finger. He was soaked with sweat or seawater or both and he looked about as tired as Dora felt.

**The authorities will be here soon,** it said.

“I’m surprised they weren’t here earlier,” Dora said.

Eddie glanced at her before he seemed to realize who she was talking to, then he went back to staring at his hands. Dora went back to staring at the ocean, watching what looked like part of the rocket’s fin-thing bobbing up and down. Was it called a fin? A wing? Was there a more technical name for it?

More importantly, her mind supplied, how were her kids? In all the chaos she forgot about them, just for a moment, but her mind always came back to them. She wondered if the rocket explosion had already made it to the news, and if either one of her kids were watching or reading about it and wondering if she was alive.

There was also the pressing matter of what she was going to do for breakfast the next morning. There was no way she was going to be let back home, especially not after the current disaster happening with the Life Foundation, so they’d have to stay with someone else. Dawn? Dora’s parents? Either way, Abbey and Theo both hated staying the night anywhere but their own rooms. Did Theo even eat dinner tonight? Dora had run out of his favorite cereal the night before, so there was a high chance he didn’t.

And in the long term, Dora had no idea if she’d even be able to get their stuff from the house. God, and her car, which was still in the garage at the Life Foundation. And her purse was also at the Life Foundation, containing important stuff like money and ID. And maybe her keys, if those weren’t at the bottom of the ocean.

And she had a symbiote now. She hadn’t really thought about how she was going to deal with that, when all night she had been trying to save herself and her kids and then the whole world. She didn’t really know what she was going to do.

She wasn’t going to get rid of it. She knew that, at least.

**Dora.**

“Hm?”

**I hear something above us.**

Dora tilted her head to listen. The scraping of rocks and dirt under someone’s shoes, moving perilously and unprofessionally down the side of the hill she and Eddie sat beneath.

“Eddie?” the person whisper-shouted as Dora heard them stumble again on the slope.

Eddie looked up from his hands. “Anne?”

A figure slipped down to the edge of the hill, finding their balance just before they would have tumbled down onto the beach. The figure slowly came into focus against the dark night’s background, features illuminated by some of the still-flaming wreckage. It was a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a worried expression, wearing a business-like jacket and a girlish patterned skirt. Dora’s symbiote tensed, and Dora turned to Eddie.

“You know her?” she said.

“That’s Anne,” Eddie said. “She’s my, uh, friend.”

“Eddie? Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Eddie said, slowly getting to his feet. “What are you—what’re you doing here, Annie? I thought you were staying more…in the forest.”

“Oh please, Eddie,” Anne said. “If I didn’t activate the sound system, you might not have stopped that…thing.”

“That was you?” Eddie said.

“Of course it was me. Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know, like a, uh…a scientist with a change of heart.” He glanced at Dora as he said it.

“I guess,” Anne said. “But, Eddie, you have to get out of here. There’s police on the way—”

“I don’t think I’ll be—” He paused to clear his throat, scratching the back of his head. “I think I need your help for that.”

“What about…?” She trailed off, and Eddie shook his head in a way that communicated his symbiote was currently down for the count. Dora gave him a small pat on the back and then looked up to Anne.

“You’re too far for either of us to reach,” she said.

“You were the one fighting with Eddie, right?” Anne said. “Can’t you, y’know, suit up?”

**“No,”** Dora and her symbiote said. Anne jumped, obviously taken aback by the octave change in Dora’s voice.

**I can’t help you much,** Dora, her symbiote said.  **We need to rest and eat.**

At the mention of sleep, Dora became hyperaware of the fatigue spreading through her body, no longer inhibited by any sort of adrenaline rush. This lack of adrenaline meant that no chemicals were helping her stave off sleep, and each second she stayed awake the more exhausted she became. Maybe she could close her eyes for just a second.

**You’ll fall asleep.**

“I won’t,” she mumbled, head already dipping and shoulders sagging.

**You should rest,** it said.  **But not here.**

“Right, right,” Dora said, blinking her eyes open. She leaned against the rock wall for support, looking over at Eddie. He looked tired, too, but not nearly as weak as Dora. She looked up at Anne, then past her at the hill the Life Foundation was built into, daunting to anyone who lacked above-average climbing abilities and energy. So yes, it was very daunting to Dora.

She looked out and considered swimming. But the water was cold, flat land was all the way across the length of the bridge, and she doubted Eddie would have the strength to swim across either.

As she was considering it, she heard noise above. It was like the sound when you opened your window on the highway, except much more distant, and very much upwards. All three looked up, and upon seeing the helicopters Dora recognized the whirring sound of their blades.

**We should hide.**

Or they should signal them and get rescued. If they hid, would they be caught anyway? If that was the case, signaling the helicopters would be less suspicious.

“Should we wave?” Eddie asked, the same debate obviously going through his head.

Dora took a step forward with the intent to answer, but as soon as she moved she fell to the ground, face sinking into wet sand.

“Whoa,” Eddie said, grabbing Dora by the shoulders and lifting her into a sitting position. “Are you—oh, you got sand on your face, lemme…” He raised his hand to wipe it off, but her symbiote appeared from his shoulder and slapped him away. Eddie pulled his hand away, awkwardly chuckling a “sorry” as Dora’s symbiote scooped the sand off her cheek.

Dora blinked tiredly at the horizon. It was still dark, but it would only be an hour or two until there was enough light for them to be quickly spotted. But then again, with the searchlights from the incoming helicopters, they could be found right then, too.

**We should hide,** her symbiote insisted.  **And rest. Then we can get out of here. All of us.**

“You make a convincing point,” Dora mumbled.

**I know.**

She huffed a laugh. “Do we need food?”

**No,** it said.  **Not immediately. Your adrenaline has been enough.** It paused.  **We** **_could_ ** **eat, if you suddenly give up vegetarianism and your kosher diet.**

“No thanks,” Dora said, letting out another weak laugh.

“Is she okay?” she heard Anne whisper.

“Yeah, she’s just, y’know, having a conversation,” Eddie whispered back.

“With  _ it?” _

“Who else?” Eddie said. “Didn’t you do that when you were, uh…”

“Of course I did,” Anne said. “It’s still… _ weird _ to see it.”

“Weird doesn’t mean bad,” Eddie said.

“I didn’t say it meant bad,” Anne said. “I just… You know what I mean.”

**Do you think they’re always like this?**

Dora laughed again, the action of which continued the joyful feedback loop between them: Laughing made Dora happy. Making her laugh seemed to make the symbiote happy. And their feelings continued to bounce off each other, keeping her in a strangely content mood despite her exhaustion and underlying anxiety.

The helicopters’ searchlights moved from focusing on the water to the Life Foundation itself, and Dora knew they would be finding bodies in there.

“We can’t hide here,” Dora said. “It’s out in the open. They’re bound to find us.”

**What do you suggest?**

“I’d love to run,” Dora said.

Her symbiote paused.  **We could,** it said. **If there’s transportation nearby, I could get us all there. But that would be all I can do for you until we recover.**

“Anne,” Dora said, “do you have a car?”

“Uh, yeah,” Anne said. “I drove it here. I parked really close to here, actually. In that Battery Spencer parking lot.”

“That’s not so far,” Dora said, trying to be optimistic. “We could make that, right?”

**Yes,** it said.  **But it will hurt.**

She nodded. “I can handle it.”

**It could harm you, Dora.**

“I trust you,” she said.

That seemed to be enough for her symbiote, which encased her arms and legs in its inky blue mass. With their arms it wrapped tendrils securely around Eddie and Anne, and with their legs it leapt high into the air, bounding over the hill and landing just inside the Battery Spencer fort. From there all it took was one more powerful jump to the parking lot, and the symbiote let Anne and Eddie down before receding back inside Dora.

_ That didn’t hurt so much, _ Dora thought, just as her head starting pounding and her limbs screamed in agony.

“Shit,” she said. She was seeing spots. There had been previous times in her life where she had been severely overworked, so she was familiar with what those black dots in her vision meant.

Before she could issue a warning to Anne or Eddie (something like, “Please catch me!” or “Look out!”), Dora once again went crashing down to the ground, except this time her eyes stayed closed.

* * *

Dora woke in the backseat of a minivan. Or maybe some other type of car, since she wasn’t well-versed on vehicles, but that wasn’t what mattered. What did matter was the voice in her head saying,  **Good morning.**

She looked out the window. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, casting orange shadow over the waking city.

“Good morning,” she answered.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Anne said. “Eddie’s been asleep too, so it’s been really quiet in here.” She chuckled awkwardly.

“Mm,” Dora hummed in acknowledgement, too tired to tell her that she was too tired to talk.

**Anne is taking us to her home,** her symbiote informed her.  **It seems she lives close to you.**

Dora took a moment to process the scenery moving by. Cozy condos and storefronts that were all too familiar.

“Convenient,” Dora mumbled.

“What?” Anne said. “Oh, right, you’re talking to…”

“My symbiote,” Dora said.

“Your symbiote,” Anne said, nodding. “Right, yeah.”

Dora nodded back, blinking away sleep. She was already feeling more awake, but not less physically exhausted. Her whole body ached.

“How long have I been asleep?” Dora asked.

**Twenty-two minutes,** her symbiote said.

“About twenty minutes,” Anne said. “Lucky you, you slept through most of the ride.” She paused. “Maybe not… _ lucky, _ since you passed out after overexerting yourself, but you did miss out on a pretty boring ride.”

Dora nodded again, then suddenly realized that Anne couldn’t see her. “Yeah,” she said. “Thank you, by the way,” she added. As soon as the words left her mouth she felt bitterness unfurl in the pit of her stomach, a bitterness she knew wasn’t her own.

“Of course,” Anne said. “You saved Eddie’s life. And the human race, apparently. It’s the least I can do to give you a ride.”

“Um, speaking of favors,” Dora said, “do you have any…almonds? Or eggs?” She and her symbiote had enjoyed those earlier. But she was also craving… “Or chocolate,” she added.

“Yeah, I’m sure I have eggs and chocolate,” Anne said. “I can make you and Eddie something to eat. I’m sure you’re both starving.”

**We could eat Anne,** her symbiote said.

“You don’t mean that,” Dora said.

**Maybe I do,** it said.  **Most of my kind subside on a meat-based diet, either eating others or consuming the organs of a host.**

“You haven’t done that to me,” Dora said.

It was silent for a moment.  **I did at first,** it finally admitted.  **But I fixed it.**

For some reason, Dora laughed. “Thank you for that,” she said, the words prompting a nervous, fluttery feeling in her stomach. It reminded her of being a kid, and having…

“Oh, shit,” Dora said, jolting up. She patted her pant pockets, pulling out her cell phone and with it the flower her symbiote had given her. She caught it before it fell, putting it delicately back in her pocket before hurriedly dialing Dawn’s number.

It hardly took two rings for her to pick up. “Dora?” Dawn said. “Oh my God, are you okay? There was that huge explosion near the Life Foundation, and the kids are up in the guest room and they’re pretending to be asleep but I’m sure they’re worried about you—”

“Tell them I’m okay,” Dora said. “I’ll be over once I get some rest. And I’ll call the school and say they’re both sick.”

“I’ll tell them once they get down here,” Dawn said. “Uh, speaking of which, what’s good for breakfast? Do they eat meat? Are they okay with kosher food?”

“Yes and yes,” Dora said. “But Theo’s picky. Don’t be offended if he doesn’t eat.”

**We should pick up his cereal on the way there.**

“Mhm,” Dora hummed in agreement, even though she wasn’t sure if they’d have the time. “Anyway, Dawn, thank you for doing this. It’s been a huge help.”

Bitterness again appeared in her stomach.

“Well, it seems like it was an emergency,” Dawn said. “Speaking of which, what was with that weird thing you did?”

Dora coughed. “What… _ thing?” _

“With the cookies,” Dawn said. “When you—”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dora said, chuckling nervously.

**You’re still a bad liar.**

Dora shushed it. “Anyway, Dawn, I have to go now,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She hung up, taking a deep breath. She put her phone back in her pocket (the one not housing the flower).

“Dawn?” Anne asked, in an obvious attempt to make conversation.

“A friend,” Dora said. “She’s looking after my kids right now.”

“They aren’t with your husband?” Anne asked.

“Um, no,” Dora said. “I’m not in a relationship.”

“Oh,” Anne said. “Sorry, I just assumed—”

“It’s fine,” Dora assured her. “People make that mistake a lot.”

Anne opened her mouth to say something, but shut it as Eddie began to stir from the passenger’s seat. She glanced over at him.

“Eddie?” she said.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m up.” He shimmied into a less slouched seating position, blinking at the sunrise. Then he looked at Anne, and at Dora, and then down at his own hands, and he said, “Oh God.”

“What?” Anne said. “Eddie, are you— are you okay?”

“No,” he said. “No I’m not.”

Dora sat up straighter, brows creasing in concern.

“What’s going on?” Anne said, eyes shifting rapidly between him and the road.

“I thought…” He paused, choking on the words. “I thought we were tired. Like you, Skirth. And I mean, I’m tired. I’m really tired. But now I think…” His voice was hoarse, and though Dora couldn’t see his face, she could hear that he was close to tears.

“What, Eddie?” Anne asked, with rising panic.

“I think it’s dead.”


	9. We

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long night, but at the very least this battle is over.
> 
> But not without casualties.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17XywKaSbcAVt6iJwNtk-UcEIv4Q2qW7)

Dora stood in the kitchen of Anne’s condo, out of sight of Eddie and Anne, who were seated on her couch. Dora could hear Eddie’s sobs, muffled through a pillow or his palms or maybe just the thin wall between them. And she heard Anne, intermittently attempting to comfort him while on the phone with her boyfriend, who also happened to be a doctor. (With Eddie’s symbiote dead, there was new concern for any injuries he may have sustained. There was also a mention of heart atrophies, which Dora would have asked for clarification on if it were a better time.)

**Is it appropriate to help ourselves to food?** her symbiote asked. She could feel it eyeing the cabinets.  **Or is Anne going to make us something?**

“Eddie’s  _ grieving,” _ Dora whispered. “She’s helping him get through it.

**She should feed us first,** it said.  **He won’t recover in one night, but you and I can.**

“I guess,” Dora said. “I mean, me, I don’t even know how I would recover if you…” She trailed off.

There was a moment’s silence before her symbiote spoke again.  **I understand, Dora,** it said.  **I feel the same way.**

She didn’t have to respond for the symbiote to know she appreciated the sentiment. She was sure the feeling was radiating off of her, enough that it might even be perceivable to someone not connected to her on a physical level.

“It’s weird,” Dora said. “Earlier tonight I never would have thought I’d be willingly sharing my body with an alien.”

**I had my hopes,** her symbiote said.

She muffled an already quiet laugh with the palm of her hand. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said. “It’s really inappropriate right now.”

**I like making you laugh,** it said, and Dora was lucky this time that a verbal response was unnecessary, because all her vocabulary had suddenly been knocked from her brain.

“Huh,” she said, instead of something coherent.

Her symbiote emitted an infectious joy.

Anne walked into the kitchen, face changing from concern to disgruntled confusion when she saw Dora smiling to herself.

“Um,” Dora said, smile immediately dropping. “How is he?”

“Not great,” Anne said. “He’s refusing to go to the hospital, so Dan’s coming over to check on him.”

“Dan?” Dora asked.

“A doctor,” Anne clarified.

“Your boyfriend,” Dora said, and Anne squinted at her.

“Yes,” she said, “my boyfriend.”

Dora nodded, pointing a finger to the cabinets. “Do you mind if we…?”

Anne blinked, the tension leaving her face somewhat. “Oh,” she said. “Sure, yeah.”

“We can make something for everyone,” Dora offered. “For breakfast.”

Anne sighed and offered Dora a small smile. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

Dora nodded, immediately beginning to rifle through the cabinets for ingredients. She heard Anne move back to console Eddie, who Dora imagined could use some comfort food.

“Omelette?” Dora offered.

**Yes,** her symbiote said.

“Do you know any recipes off the top of my head?” she asked.

She felt it search her mind.  **Yes,** it concluded.  **A cheese omelette. Abbey’s favorite.**

She grabbed pre-shredded bags of parmesan and cheddar, eggs, salt and pepper, and onion. It would be simple, and maybe not that good, but Dora found she was so hungry she didn’t care at all.

“Hey,” Dora said as she began cracking the eggs, “aren’t you upset about it?”

**I never knew it very well,** her symbiote said.  **We aren’t a very social species.**

“Really?” Dora said. “You seem pretty talkative.”

**I,** it said, and stopped.  **I suppose I’m an exception.**

“Lucky me,” Dora said.

**You are.**

She chuckled, taking a taste of the parmesan. It had that familiar, artificial, store-bought-cheese flavor. There was an odd comfort in it.

“Now that we have a second of calm,” Dora said, “do you want to tell me about yourself?”

**What do you want to know?**

“Your name, maybe,” Dora suggested.

**I don’t have one.**

“Really? But we were…”

**Ricochet. That’s** **_us._ **

“Okay,” she said, grabbing a whisk to beat the eggs. “I guess that makes sense. I still don’t understand  _ why, _ though.”

**There’s no purpose for names,** it explained.  **There’s no sense in an real, individual ‘self’ when our existence relies on a host.**

“You seem pretty individual,” Dora said. Feeling its unease, she clarified, “I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

**There is a sort of…** **_paradox_ ** **to this idea,** it admitted.

“Because you’re also a species that doesn’t usually give a shit about the host at all,” Dora concluded.

**Exactly,** it said.

Her ears trained onto the sudden and unmistakable sound of the front door being unlocked. Her body tensed, and she felt the symbiote ready itself, even though she knew logically that neither of them were in a state to fight.

Luckily, the opening of the door came with soft greetings from Anne, so Dora had to assumed that it was the doctor (whose name she was having trouble remembering).

“Hey, Eddie,” she heard him say, awkward but still comforting. “Just lie back for a minute, I’m gonna do a basic check of your body to make sure nothing’s broken.”

Eddie mumbled some inaudible response that Dora probably wouldn’t have been able to decipher were she in the same room as him.

**Does that doctor know?**

“Probably,” Dora mumbled. “Otherwise I don’t think Anne would call him.”

**That’s her partner,** her symbiote said.  **She could be misjudging him.**

“I think she seems smart,” Dora said, shrugging and grabbing three plates and forks. She placed one omelette on each, then debated whether or not she should bring one to Anne and Eddie. She was planning on doing it, of course, but was now the time?

The more she considered it, the more indecisive her mind became. It would be polite to bring them food, but would it be right? She hardly knew Eddie, so casual interactions were already slightly strained, but how was she supposed to help him in his grief? (Or at the very least not make it worse.)

Sensing her indecision, her symbiote spoke.  **Bring them food. That way we can get out of here sooner.**

Dora nodded, her nerves easing a bit. Getting back to her kids was her first priority after eating. She wondered if Anne would let her eat on the go, if she’d rather Dora return the plate immediately.

“Hey,” Dora said, walking in with Eddie’s and Anne’s plates in hand. “I made omelettes.” She placed them on the coffee table in front of the couch, where Eddie was seated, and where Anne’s doctor-boyfriend was kneeling and placing his stethoscope on Eddie’s chest.

“I’m sorry there’s only two, I didn’t make any for, um…” She searched her brain for his name, but came up blank. “…your boyfriend.”

Anne’s boyfriend nodded. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m Dan, by the way. I’d shake your hand, but I’m with a patient.”

Dora nodded. “I’m Dora,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

He nodded in return. “And do you have one of those, um…?”

A thin tendril extended from Dora’s back and brought her plate and fork to her hands.

“Yes,” she said, staking the fork in her omelette and taking a bite. As soon as she did, her stomach rumbled and she couldn’t help but raise the plate up and let the omelette slip into her mouth and down her throat. When she tilted her head back down she was met with the sight of all three other people in the room staring at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll, um. I’ll be going.”

“You can have my omelette,” Anne offered.

“Oh,” Dora said, her symbiote already snatching it up with a tendril. “Thank you.”

She gave a small wave and then exited the condo as fast as possible, her symbiote placing the omelette in her hands as soon as the door shut behind them. She took a quick look around her, and seeing no bystanders, she decided to eat this one as she had the other.

**Much more efficient than chewing,** her symbiote commented.

“That’s true,” Dora admitted, “but I think we should stick to chewing. I don’t want to attract any…unwanted attention.

**That’s true,** it said. Then after a moment,  **That means I’ll be sticking around.** It was phrased like a statement, but posed as a question.

“Yes,” Dora said, more sure of that than she had been many things in her life.

A feeling of contentment filled her body. Part of that feeling was from the symbiote. But part of it wasn’t, and Dora realized it was her own.

“Let’s go home,” she said, the words familiar in their form, but altogether foreign in this context.

The symbiote took a moment to reply. Then it simply said,  **Let’s.**

* * *

They made it to Dawn’s in a cab, since both of them agreed that it was too bright out to transform discreetly. The cab passed by Dora’s street on the way, and she could see that the house was still teeming with police activity. She would have to deal with that later. As well as her and the kids’ living situation. Would their house be a crime scene for much longer? How was she going to deal with an interrogation from the police? Would Dawn let them stay for as long as they had to, or would her kindness already have expired by this morning?

Dora shook her head. She would have to deal with that later. Now it was time to see Abbey and Theo.

Dora knocked softly on the door, which opened almost immediately. Dora was greeted by Dawn, bags under her eyes and hair frizzing up in every direction.

“Dora!” Dawn shouted, pulling her inside and slamming the door behind her.

Dora quickly surveyed the scene. Theo was sitting on the counter, Abbey’s phone in hand. There was a mess of milk spilled on the kitchen table, and an even bigger mess of o-shaped cereals scattered around. Abbey was absent from the scene, but as soon as Theo shouted “Mom!” and bolted at her, she heard steps from upstairs.

Theo buried his face in Dora’s stomach, that being the farthest he could reach, and her hands rested around his head. Abbey came bolting down the stairs and practically jumped on them, and Dora might have fallen if it weren’t for a few subtle strands of symbiote locking her legs to the floor.

Abbey pulled out of the hug as quickly as she had given it, but Theo continued holding on.

“Hi, Mom,” she said.

“Hi, Abbey,” Dora said.

“Me too!” Theo said, voice muffled and face still buried in Dora’s shirt.

“Hi, Theo,” Dora said, ruffling his hair. He unlatched from her to slap his hair back in place. When his hair was up to his standards, his hands moved from his head to his sides, and he bounced up and down.

“There were explosions,” Theo said. “I saw ’em on the TV.”

“He couldn’t sleep,” Dawn explained.

“They happened at the Life Foundation,” Abbey observed, in a way that was obviously asking for Dora to explain.

“Right,” Dora said. “Let’s talk about that later.”

“You mean never?”

“I mean later,” she said. “I swear.”

Abbey sighed. “Yeah, sure. Okay.”

She gave the collar of Theo’s shirt a tug, and the two of them sat down at the cereal wasteland that was the kitchen table.

“Theo hasn’t eaten yet,” Dawn said. “I tried, but…”

“It’s okay,” Dora said. “He’s a really picky eater.”

“I can hear,” Theo said, “and I am not.”

Abbey rolled her eyes.

“How about I get you both some scrambled eggs?” Dora offered.

**We should have some too,** her symbiote suggested.  **We still need to refuel.**

“I can help,” Dawn said.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“No, really, I insist.”

**Let her help. It will get the job done faster.**

Dora sighed. “I’ll feel guilty,” she explained, partly to Dawn and partly to her symbiote. “You’re already giving us housing right now, and I don’t know when…” She trailed off, gaze shifting to her kids. Abbey was tiredly watching Theo fiddle with her phone, playing a game that Dora, no matter how many scientific degrees she had, couldn’t for the life of her understand. The silence lingered a moment too long, and Abbey looked up, eyes meeting Dora’s. Dora turned away, and she decided to leave the rest of her sentence unsaid, hoping Dawn would catch on.

“It’s the least I can do to make breakfast,” she said. It would be the second time that day, a second course of eggs, but it sounded so good that she couldn’t give a shit.

“I want bacon eggs!” Theo said, kicking his legs out in excitement.

Her symbiote chuckled, a new sound for Dora’s ears, and she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face if she tried.

“You too, Abbey?”

Abbey nodded absently, obviously too tired to care.

Theo was exhausted too, but he wasn’t showing it just yet. Dora was sure he had displayed his overworked self to Dawn, judging by the mess in the kitchen. In the middle of Dora making him eggs, he’d probably have a tantrum. Abbey would probably storm back up to the guest room, which was her teenage way of expressing her exhaustion and frustration and anger. Dora, being the mother, would have to deal with all of it.

**We should get started on the eggs,** her symbiote said. **They’re looking more impatient by the second.**

Somehow, her grin spread wider.

“Sounds like a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that’s the end!! thank you all so so much for the support. i’m so far too shy to reply to most comments directly, but i appreciate every single one so much!!
> 
> i do plan on following this up with another story (i actually have a lot of big plans, so it will hopefully be a few stories). i’m debating how i should post it, though. for this one i finished it and then posted it weekly, but the second story is going so slow i think it might be better to sporadically post whenever i happen to finish a chapter (i’m leaning toward the latter option though)


End file.
